


when you finally get involved, face to face

by transishimaru



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Blackmail, Friendship, Homophobia, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Minimal Despair AU, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Trans Female Character, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-07-28 12:31:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 29,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20064073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transishimaru/pseuds/transishimaru
Summary: The progression of Mondo and Taka's relationship, over the course of ten years.(ishimondo end game, read notes for other warnings)





	1. it's amazing what you'll find, face to face

**Author's Note:**

> As I said in the summary, Mondo/Taka is the endgame ship here, but there will be others involved. Off the top of my head, Mondo/Chihiro for a bit, mentions of Taka having a crush on Makoto, mentioned Taka/Gundham, and later on Taka/OMC. I'll update the tags as they become necessary.
> 
> By "Minimal Despair AU," I mean that Junko tries, and fails to actually make anything major happen. I'm not going to get too much into the lore, because I don't really know that I'm well-equipped enough to carry that out, and this chapter was already much longer than it was supposed to be. 
> 
> I use she/her/hers for Chihiro. Do not leave comments about Chihiro's gender or pronouns, they will be deleted. 
> 
> This first chapter wound up being much longer than I initially planned for it to be. I also bounced around on the title for a bit, before deciding on [_Face to Face_ by Daft Punk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKYWWfR_GKA). Other mood music for this chapter: [_Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop_ by Landon Pigg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erywPdFfORE) and [_Alone_by Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cw1ng75KP0).

The first day is like waking up a different person.

His eyes open on a shadowed ceiling that is no different than it had been any other day or any other week before. But something feels off-kilter all the same, and the subtle changes are enough to shove his drowsiness off in half-seconds. There’s no way he should be so awake so early.

His shoulders ache from the weight of his bad decisions. Giving in to his competitive side, letting his anger get the better of him, refusing to swallow his pride. And, of course, standing up too quickly.

His father says he’s always slept like the dead – not just in his stillness or the way he couldn’t be roused, but on his back and rigid with his hands at his sides. He's never thought much about the way the tension takes his frame when he’s asleep, about nightmares he has or even much about dreams. They’re intangible, and he doesn’t put stock in their interpretation.

Everything sort of creaks when he pushes himself up, arms strained and shaking under his own weight. This feels...

…

...this feels. No end to a sentence. Nothing to complete it. It simply exists in different vibrations than he’s used to. He’s certainly never registered feeling numb before, but now that he feels _this_, it’s like he has been.

He breathes in, four seconds,

Exhales, four seconds.

And he still feels it. Everything has been sped up to work within the confines of real time, as if he’d somehow managed to be moving frame-by-frame every second until now.

He could be dying.

He swallows down a noise that tries to claw its way out of his throat. In the time he’s been sitting here, contemplating the ongoing persistent motions, the way things around him seem to move physically while stationary, the minutes have brushed past him and is now six-eleven in the morning. His alarm has been off for twelve minutes.

He doesn’t know if he can make himself move to stretch. He has to put thought and effort behind just swinging his body around to let his feet hit the floor. Everything just under the skin stings and tingles. Something had the circulation forced back into him and now it’s rolling in his stomach.

His hands try to level and he grips the bed tightly. It feels like he’s falling over.

He should ask someone what it is. And his mind goes to Mondo.

He wonders if that was real.

No. He doesn’t think he’ll stretch today. He can probably manage without it. He’ll have to, because he doesn’t think he can manage to do it. He even stumbles standing upright, his head murmuring about equilibrium and the holes in IV drips and decompression sickness. He supports himself against the wall, uncertain if he’s really leaning or if it’s just his perception.

He showers, and tries to kick the water from his ears.

He’s always been an early riser, and he expects that when he leaves his room he’ll be left to wander down the halls on his own, head growing dizzy from the new speed at which he is trying to process his environments. He feels weightless, and so does everything else, fingers trembling from applying too much force to every movement. It almost surprises him that he doesn’t pop the buttons from his gakuran.

Something giddy bubbles in his chest, and he laughs, soft and weird to himself in his room. It's not the practiced chuckle he’s taught himself.

His fingers drift over his mouth.

He's three minutes behind schedule when he opens his door and finds Mondo leaning up against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, head tilted back and lips parted.

The feeling in his chest rises, some undefined affectionate noise threatening to slip out when he taps his classmate on the shoulder. He almost starts with _Oowada-kun_ and re-thinks it before the words have left his mouth, calling “Mondo? Did you need to speak with me?”

Mondo jolts from his half-asleep position and blinks, eyes disoriented. His gaze latches on to Kiyotaka after a few seconds, lips turning up in recognition. “Nah,” he says, voice still low in tiredness, “Just wanted t’ check on you.”

He has never smiled so wide, cheeks burning and aching. “I am fine! And how are you? How did you sleep?”

Mondo looks at him like he’s said something funny, scoffing under his breath. “I’m fine. You're the one who stood up so fast ya knocked yerself out, dontcha remember?”

For a second, he hadn’t. He’d seen Mondo’s smile, and the last few months – to say nothing of last night – had disappeared. There’s something lurking obscured underneath the layers of excitement and anticipation he feels that he doesn’t want to touch at the moment, not when Mondo is asking him a question. He says “Right,” when he means _yes_, and starts to memorize the way Mondo’s lips tug up to reveal his teeth when he smirks. “I am a little sore,” he says, lips numb, “But it’s nothing I can’t handle!”

“Good to hear,” Mondo says, and his hand rests on Taka’s head, ruffling his hair. And that _feels_, too. Warm, a little too rough, like he’s never experienced another person’s touch until now. Mondo’s hand falls away and he shoves it into the pocket of his coat, looking around the hallway. “Man, I never get up this early. Whaddaya even do when no one’s up?”

“I am not the only one up,” he protests. Mondo is still smirking at him. “Not – not all the time, anyway.” He rarely stutters, but now that he’s holding back yawns he’s tripping over his words in ways he doesn’t, eyes going out to the hallway in front of them so his mind will focus on something other than his classmate’s face. “Hina and Sakura are frequently up early to practice their respective talents. A few of the older students wake early, as well.”

Mondo slouches next to him, so their heights are closer to level as they walk toward the dining hall. “’Kay. So d’you like… practice yer morals thing, or somethin’?” he asks, scratching the back of his neck.

Kiyotaka’s initial reaction is wondering how in the world he would practice something like that, but he stops himself from asking – it would only be rude. It isn’t Mondo’s fault if his ‘talent’, so to speak, is sort of vague. “Well, sort of. I suppose organizing and planning my work is a sort of practice.”

“And you gotta get up early for that?” It’s weird to hear these kinds of comments phrased as genuine questions, but for as perplexed as Mondo looks he doesn’t appear to be judging Kiyotaka on his choices.

He’s breathing easier, or something similar. There’s still a twinge in his chest when he looks at Mondo, lids heavy and movements sluggish. It’s like hiccupping. His brain flashes on repeat that Mondo got up this early to spend time with him, to know more about him. It’s real. It’s all real. “I don’t need to,” he admits, unscripted. “But the earlier you get up to get the important things done, the more time you have during the day to devote to more pleasurable endeavors.”

The corners of Mondo’s lips turn up again and Taka wonders what it is he said to inspire that response. “Yeah? Like what?”

_He really must be tired_. “Well, you might play video games, or spend time with friends –“

“Nah, man, I mean what do _you_ do?” He’s got one hand on the back of his head again, looking at Taka and it’s hard for Kiyotaka to look back. “Ya don’t really seem like the type ta play video games, an’ you said you didn’t have many friends before, right? So what do you do with your free time?”

Ah. “Study.” It sounds boring, even to himself.

“Really?” He sounds concerned. It’s uncomfortable. “What about – I dunno, readin’? Don’t nerds do that kinda shit for fun?”

“I’m not sure how I feel about being called a nerd,” he says, for lack of anything else, but it only distracts Mondo for the seconds it takes him to roll his eyes. “I suppose I do, sometimes. But I spend most of my time studying. I have to, if I want to prove myself –“

He feels embarrassed, saying it all out loud. He’s never felt it before, though he’s only ever spoken about his habit when lecturing others on theirs. Never because someone had asked. No one had ever wanted to know. His cheeks burn and he can’t quite meet Mondo’s eyes, wondering what he’s thinking about the information he’s being handed. He doesn’t respond right away, and Kiyotaka isn’t sure if the idea that he wasn’t listening at all is comforting or upsetting.

But he does, eventually, say something. “I still don’t get what you gotta prove yerself for. You got into Hope’s Peak, right? Ain’t that part of your goal, provin’ normal people can do whatever they want?”

“Well, yes.” He’s still overheated. “But I can’t just stop there. I have to prove that I can do better than people like Togami –“ Kiyotaka covers his mouth with a hand, so forcefully the smacking sound echoes in the empty hallway outside the dining room. “I’m terribly sorry – I shouldn’t have said something like that about our classmate!” His voice escalates to shouting, eyes stinging as tears force themselves up to his eyelids.

Mondo’s starting to say “It don’t matter, he’s a jackass,” when Kiyotaka’s hand drops from his mouth and hits his wrist with equal force.

Mondo cuts himself off, moving so his whole body is in front of Taka’s, grabbing hold of his wrist roughly before he can hit himself again. “The fuck? Quit hittin’ yerself!” For a moment Kiyotaka can’t speak, trying to pull himself out, thoughts overridden with a need to punish himself for saying something so rude and the sudden panic of being restrained.

Mondo tugs his arm, catching him off guard and pulling Taka to his chest, his hand on Kiyotaka’s back. It’s so sudden that Taka is startled out of his thoughts, mind going black as he registers that he’s being hugged. Of all things.

Well. He doesn’t feel so much like hitting himself now. He feels embarrassed about his outburst as he calms down, matching his breathing against Mondo’s. He’s even forgotten what it was they had been talking about or how they got on the topic. And he’s not sure that it matters anymore, either.

This feels… _nice_.

* * *

Mondo has had plenty of friendships before. Despite all obvious flaws and drawbacks, he has been relatively popular with his peers. Even Makoto, whom he’d hit so hard he passed out within the first week of school, had hung around him with the same kind of half-terrified curiosity most of his friends held toward him. Including Chihiro – someone he’d tried so hard to soften himself for, but she still looked at him as though he was an animal only on the brink of domestication. Nearly safe, but not enough.

Kiyotaka seems to see him as a puppy. Untrained, as he views the rest of his class, in discipline and self-control, but not irredeemable or frightening. And he has, to the best of Mondo’s knowledge, never viewed him as a threat.

And now that they are friends, that they have shared so much between them, Mondo wonders how he ever thought of that as a bad thing.

They don’t quite walk arm-in-arm. That would be weird. Even for as affectionate as Mondo tends to get with his friends, how affectionate he feels he could get with this one in particular, it would be too much. But they stand so close together that Mondo finds it impossible to miss a single gesture his new best friend makes, no matter how small. And he can’t pull his eyes away, can’t look at anyone else, barely registering people staring as they interact like this. So _easily_.

<strike>The first day that they are friends</strike> The first _week_ that they are friends, Mondo puts in a more concerted effort to be a part of Kiyotaka’s life than he has put in any of his friendships before. He’s more aware of himself around Taka than he is around his other friends, and his brain never really settles on what catalyzed that feeling. Makoto walks into the dining room that morning and sees them nearly hip-to-hip, laughing too loudly, and looks relieved to see them getting along, though still wary. He keeps throwing glances their direction as they talk.

“How long have they been like this?” Mondo hears him ask as he sits down beside Hina.

“All morning,” she replies, nose crinkled. “It’s gross.”

Something in the word hits him. He doesn’t know how she means it, if she means it at all, but his arms go stiff where he’s got one with a hand on his hip and the other around Taka’s shoulders. He doesn’t like the implication, if it’s there at all, and he can feel Taka’s eyes on his face in confusion. Some part of him lashes out before he even thinks it through, snapping “Hell no! Feels great, more like.”

Hina rolls her eyes where he’s expecting a shout, some kind of argument, a snap back at him. She’s gone back to her conversation with Sakura, saying something about how men are weird; but under his jacket Mondo can feel sweat sticking to his neck, his back, his arms.

He knows some people have this belief that men who are emotional or affectionate are weak. As much as he knows that he knows that it’s bullshit, he can’t seem to help but internalize some of the damage. Daiya didn’t raise him to be cold, but his environment taught him to ignore the pain. Taka seems reversed: uncontrolled volume and tears, expressive of exactly what he’s feeling as he’s feeling it. But when it comes to touch, he acts like a stranger to the feeling, and Mondo’s not about to let some kind of low-level homophobia or whatever ruin his friend’s ability to experience it.

After about two weeks, it starts to be old news. The mystique of it has worn off to the upperclassmen already, since they don’t interact that often with their class to begin with. But for that first week, no one approaches either of them, watching the two from a distance. It makes Mondo feel like he’s the subject of a documentary, but Kiyotaka doesn’t appear to notice.

Their observation is the only part of it Mondo notices. Time, on the other hand, flies by completely. It’s only when Leon drops down next to him at the table and says, “It’s been like, a month, man. You’re really friends with him, then?” that he realizes any significant length of time has passed.

It takes him a moment to realize who he’s talking about, and he scowls. “The fuck kinda question is that? Didn’ I fuckin’ say we were friends?”

“Well, yeah,” Leon says, leaning back so his chair is balancing on two feet. “But you spent, like, the first half of the school year fighting, so I didn’t think it would last. I mean, what’s an honor student wanna hang around a dumbass for?” Mondo slaps his chair so it’s pushed down with all four feet on the ground, but Leon only laughs at him. “Damn! Ultimate Hall Monitor’s rubbing off on you.”

Mondo rolls his eyes. “That ain’t his talent, Leon, you know that, right?”

“Alright then, smartass, so what is his talent?” He puts his elbow on the table, leaning in, smirking.

Because he knows that Mondo doesn’t really get it, either, only what Taka puts into it. But he’s not about to let Leon know that. “’S closer to student council president than hall monitor,” he starts.

“And technically, it’s neither,” Taka finishes. He’s accompanied by Chihiro, looking exhausted but happy, radiant blush over her face as she looks between the three of them. “May we join you?”

“Aw, Mondo, look! Your two favorite people.” Mondo jabs his side with his elbow. “I’m not stoppin’ you. Though Mondo seems to be gunning for you job in the fun-killing department, Ishimaru.”

Taka’s brows furrow, pouting. Mondo kind of wants to put out that fire before it ignites – sometimes Taka has a hard time distinguishing what is and isn’t meant to be a joke. But he doesn’t tell Leon that isn’t a part of his job description either, only asks, “Do you not know my first name?”

Leon looks as bewildered by the change in subject as Mondo is. “Huh? Yeah, I do. Why?”

“You only ever call me by my last name.” His usually intense, uncomfortable stare is pointed to the table instead of to Leon’s face. So Mondo thinks he knows what the problem might be.

“It bothers him,” Mondo says. Across the table, Chihiro puts her hand on Taka’s shoulder, and Mondo swallows with his teeth clenched. Not that it means anything, other than Taka gaining more friends than just him, and that’s good –

“Oh. Uh –“ Leon almost thwacks him in the back when he goes to touch the back of his hair. “Sorry… Kiyo?”

Taka shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “Taka, please. Or Kiyotaka. Kiyo by itself just feels…”

“Like a parent?” Chihiro asks.

“Like a lover.” Leon makes a choking noise. “Did I say something weird?”

“Kinda, dude. We just call ‘em girlfriends.” He looks to Chihiro, and Mondo hears wind rushing in his ears. “Unless that’s what you asked him to call you?”

The both of them go pink, tears gushing to the surface. They’d make, Mondo thinks, a really weird couple. “We’re not dating!” Taka shouts, and Leon laughs, trying to convince him to quiet down. “I was merely assisting her with a project! And she found herself staying up way too late, so I went to wake her this morning, that’s all!”

“Geeze, dude, I’m just teasin’ you.” Kiyotaka doesn’t look convinced. “Dude, really. I’m sure you got more important shit to worry about than dating.”

His eyes are back on the table, still watery, and Mondo’s attention follows his gaze. If they weren’t in a group like this, he’d ask what Taka was being so evasive about when he says “Yes, of course,” with only half the volume and conviction he usually does.

Leon moves again, adjusting himself so he’s sitting on his chair sideways to look at Chihiro. Mondo’s mind can’t decide which is more important right now: what Leon’s saying to her, or the fact that Taka isn’t so much as glaring in Leon’s direction as he leans back. “What about you, Chi?” he hears, and feels his neck catching fire. “You seeing anyone?”

“No, not at the moment,” she says. Her face is still flushed, looking away from them shyly.

He feels Leon’s weight against his shoulder, leaned back in the opposite direction to say directly into Mondo’s ear, “I think that’s very interesting. Did you hear that, Mondo? She’s not seeing anyone. Very –“

Mondo shoves him over in the opposite direction, this time succeeding in sending him to the floor.

* * *

Mondo’s being quiet.

Kiyotaka knows that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. He talks more than the average person seems to, and it aggravates his peers. They’ve been off-campus all day, Mondo having finally convinced him to walk around the city with him on a day off, and sometimes that tires people out. It tires Taka out, so that even with these past few months of Mondo making compromises to spend time with him studying if Taka does things he enjoys too – he’s going to have to spend some time in his room alone when they get back. But this kind of silence feels different, somehow. He can’t think of _how_, or why this lull sticks out to him more than others do. But Taka has stopped talking, staring at Mondo for the past seven minutes, sitting on half-wall somewhere outside the school, trying to think of a way to ask what’s going on.

_(His cheeks are darker, almost red. They look… soft.)_

His breathing stutters and he almost coughs. He remembers that it’s impolite to stare, even if Mondo has never called him out on it. And he’s always staring at Mondo.

There should be a good way to go about this, a way to start the conversation that doesn’t sound demanding. Kiyotaka’s never been good at conversations; starting them, holding them, ending them. And bringing up sensitive subjects is somehow worse, and even without the context he knows there’s something beneath the surface to his friend’s mood, and that knowledge alone scares the words off of his lips every time he goes to open his mouth.

He watches Mondo swallow, and it falls out. “Is something wrong, _kyoudai_?”

Mondo’s hand jerks, throwing rice to the ground. He looks embarrassed, almost guilty, peering at Taka from the corners of his eyes. “Nah, not – not really. Just got a lot on my mind.”

“You can talk to me about it,” Kiyotaka says, before he can help himself. And he backs up a little, making himself stare at Mondo’s neck instead of his eyes. _Staring people in the eyes makes them uncomfortable._ “If you want to, of course, you don’t have to –“

“I just gotta –“ He stops himself. His brows are furrowed, and there’s some sort of… strange expression. One Taka hasn’t seen before. He can’t even begin to guess what emotion it’s expressing. There are parts of a smile there, but it’s tinged with embarrassment, frustration, and something like sadness. Mondo’s eyes flutter shut and he takes a shaking breath, wiping his left hand on his pants. (kiyotaka stop staring stop staring stop staring stop) “I JUST GOT FEELIN’S FER SOMEONE –“

Mondo almost upsets the box in his hand as he goes to cover his mouth. He’s smiling more clearly now, but there’s still a weird feeling about the whole situation. Taka frowns, staring at Mondo’s occupied hand and how it’s trembling, so he doesn’t look anywhere else. “I take it these aren’t normal feelings?”

It hurts to see Mondo, of all people, look at him like this. Incredulous, like he can’t believe Kiyotaka’s asking something so stupid. It makes him feel very small, very isolated, and his cheeks hurt. It doesn’t last more than a couple seconds, but it still leaves an impression, his chest strained. “N-no,” Mondo replies, laughing nervously. “I mean. They’re romantic feelin’s.”

Oh. _Oh_. He feels dizzy. “And that is why you are distracted,” he says. “Are you… happy, about these feelings?”

Mondo sighs, and Taka feels it. He keeps his eyes on his own box, immobilized. “I dunno. I guess it ain’t the worst, but I keep fuckin’ up every time I try an’ talk to a girl, so I doubt it’s gonna go anywhere.”

He can feel his fingertips, too tight on the utensil in his grasp, and nothing else. “Well, if it’s someone from our class, we all know you pretty well. Even if you were to shout, I doubt that it would, er – ruin your chances.”

He hopes he’s using that turn of phrase right. Mondo grunts in acknowledgement, scraping at the bottom of his box for a couple of seconds before he stops, turning his head to actually look at Kiyotaka. And Kiyotaka feels his insides flipping over backwards, like he’s gotten too close. Mondo blinks at him, and says, “It’s Chihiro.”

Kiyotaka feels something tighten his throat, so when he swallows the food in his mouth it’s much the same sensation as it is when the seasons change and he just wakes up, mouth dry and taste in his mouth stale. There are emotions just under the surface of his skin that he hadn’t looked at closely enough to even give name to yet, muted to give him time to discount them as being something else. He didn’t want to overflow while he was still treading water, and now…

He hears it. All of it. And only that. It reminds him of those small fireworks that sit on the ground and smoke before they spark and fizz. That’s how he feels.

He pulls his eyes away from Mondo’s, staring at his food. His lashes tangle against each other, threatening to stick. There’s going to be tears, and even if everyone in his class and Mondo especially know how quick he is to cry, there’s no way it won’t look suspicious. He doesn’t have an answer to offer himself, let alone anyone else. He’s not even sure he could give him one fully-formed when it’s ready. What kind of a friend would that make him?

Taka keeps his eyes downcast and wills whatever tears there are to fall before he looks back up, clearing his throat for an uncommitted noise. “She is…” Well, what _should_ he say? What would a normal person say? “Remarkable.”

As soon as it leaves his mouth he knows that it’s wrong. There’s no good balance for this sort of thing – to show his support without appearing as competition. To sound disinterested in the right way, without arousing suspicion. He bites the inside of his lip and hopes Mondo won’t judge him for picking such a strange adjective.

He doesn’t. “Hell yeah she is!” He never does. “She’s real nervous and shit, but once she starts talkin’ about somethin’ she’s passionate about –“ he waves his hand around, and Kiyotaka’s eyes follow it to keep from looking at his face, the fireworks in his chest burning too close to the body – “I don’t get half the shit she says, but I don’t care. I could listen to ‘er talk about it all day.”

_Jealousy_. He might be stabbing a little too hard, but if he doesn’t his hands might shake, his breath might choke, he might cry harder. He doesn’t look at Mondo (“She’s so small an’ cute, like a rabbit ‘r somethin’, but she’s tryin’a get stronger –“) while he’s talking about Chihiro (“She’s prolly the smartest person I ever met – I mean, like, aside from you –“) but it’s getting harder not to speak up, make it stop.

(“She looks like she’d be so soft ta hug, like she’d smell nice –“)

He waits in what he thinks is a nice approximation of patience until Mondo has run out of things to gush about, to offer the only thing he can think to say in this situation.

“Are you planning on confessing to her?”

Mondo’s quiet again for a moment. Taka doesn’t know if looking at him will be a good idea, but he risks it, very briefly. He’s still flushed, picking at his food, but at least his silence isn’t distance this time; he seems to actually be considering Taka’s question.

And when he looks back to Taka to give his answer, he’s more in the moment than he had been before. “Do you really think I should go for it?”

Taka blinks. Eyes back on Mondo’s neck. “I don’t see why not.”

It seems like Mondo’s still staring. Under any other circumstance, or any circumstance before now, the attention would have been appreciated. He hadn’t shoved any of the pieces together to make them fit or even looked at the instruction guide for an image of the outcome, but now that he’s standing in different light it’s impossible to avoid – how bright he’s shined with Mondo’s companionship, how far into his warmth he’s leaned. So to get it all now, to feel it all… it’s too much. He feels a sudden breach of privacy, like his own thoughts and feelings are suddenly being broadcast to the rest of the school.

Even though it’s just him, and Mondo. “She seems to like you. Your presence.” He doesn’t even know what he’s saying. “She – you are friends. Correct? So I don’t think, even if she did not feel the same way, that it would. Ruin your friendship.” This must all be coming out wrong, because Mondo is staring at him. But he’s never had a friend or a **_this_** before so he doesn’t know how to give advice or support for something he does not want. (and that makes him a terrible friend.) “But I don’t see why she wouldn’t feel that way – the same way – about you.”

He’s stabbing too hard again, he’s sure. He doesn’t even know why he’s bothering; there’s nothing left in his box for him to stab at, only rice, and it’s probably making his whole reaction look much stranger than it should.

But if it comes across as odd, Mondo doesn’t say so. His hand is on the back of Taka’s head again, ruffling his hair. “Thanks, man,” he says, voice gentle. “I can prolly actually tell her, now, after talkin’ to you about it.” Great. Fantastic. (he is a terrible friend for not actually feeling that way.) “I don’t think I can get that with anyone else, even in my gang.”

Again: Great. Fantastic. Taka picks at the rice without tasting much of anything, and Mondo changes the subject. They’ve got ten minutes left before they need to head back to campus, but even with six topics passed between that moment and this, Kiyotaka still feels the ache in his chest, pounding and deafening.

* * *

He thinks he knows what it is about Taka now. It’s been bugging him that he’s more invested in their friendship than he is with his gang or his other friends at school – save Chihiro, of course – and it’s made him restless when Taka’s around. He thought at first it might be that they had so many differences, he had to make sure that he wasn’t upsetting Taka or causing too much friction. That just made him worry that these feelings he was having, their whole _friendship_ was fake and doomed to failure, and the anxiety made him sick to his stomach; but Kiyotaka hadn’t ever expected him to change, and they never struggled to find things to talk about or fit together.

So he thought instead that he’d just been a shitty friend before. And that could be part of it. Chihiro commented once that he seemed more open with the rest of their class. She didn’t say Taka was the reason, and if she implied it then that went over his head. But Makoto and Hina had chimed in to agree that in the past three months he’d been more relaxed and involved in other peoples’ lives. He doesn’t like the idea that he was a jerk before, but as long as he’s getting better at it he guesses it doesn’t matter much. Once the summer comes, and he has that break, he’ll use that knowledge to be a better leader. It’s what Taka would want him to do, anyway. Even before he gets in a relationship, he thinks he can split his time up easy: half with the gang, half with Taka. It’s just that now, it’s a third with the gang, a third with Taka, and a third with Chihiro.

But once Chihiro is in the picture differently, the whole damn frame tilts. But from this new perspective, he sees the image more clearly.

Kiyotaka isn’t there with him when he actually confesses to her, though Mondo kinda wishes he was. He knows it would look weird (_and be weak, so very weak what kind of man_ ) to need his best friend there to help him through everything, so doing it alone really was the best option _(even though he shouts less with taka they’re so energetic together but he feels calmer with him how does he)_ and he manages not to scare her off with his yelling, just like Taka said, and Taka –

Cuts himself off. Immediately. Some part of Mondo must have unconsciously (subconsciously? he’s never been good with words) known that he was likely to do this, and been trying un/subconsciously from the beginning to prove to Taka that he was committed to their friendship and cared. Because Kiyotaka isn’t really good at communicating with others, said he’d never had friends before Mondo, and Mondo flinches with discomfort even at the memory of watching Kiyotaka hit himself.

So when Chihiro says yes, and Taka disappears entirely, he can’t say he’s all that surprised. He feels his stomach drop out watching Taka come in the dining hall, see them, pretend very badly to get distracted by something else, and leave again. His body responds to the upset with all kinds of negatives: his shoulders sag, body threatening to curl in on itself or deflate like a balloon losing air. And he feels a shift next to him, too, guilt stabbing in with the emptiness of **[BEING ABANDONED]** and remembers Chihiro next to him, tears darkening the blush on her cheeks.

_I can do both I can do both_ “I’m- I’m sorry, I’ve really- really ruined your friendship, haven’t I?”

_I can do both I can do both I can_ “Nah,” Mondo says, “I’m sure it ain’t you,” _I can do both I can do both THIS IS NOT LIKE MULTI-TAKSING_ “he’s prolly just,” _I can do both I can have both I can do both I can do both_ “got somethin’ he forgot, and seein’ us reminded him.”

“Mondo…” She doesn’t look like she believes it, and he knows what she’s thinking because he is too. _Am I telling her that, or myself?_ “Do you think he’s…” _Does he like her to? If he does what do I –_ “Worried about being a third wheel?”

He looks down at her again, can’t remember having looked away to begin with. Can’t feel the arm around her shoulders, though it’s been there for a while. Her fingers are pressed against her lips. He forgets for three seconds about Taka, **[selfish]** and thinks about kissing her _[bad timing]_ . “How’d you mean?”

Her tears look more like nervousness than anguish. She’s turned in his direction, but eyes to the side as she thinks. “Well, when the two of you first became friends… you were distant with other people. Maybe… he thinks it’s the same, since we started dating?”

Genius. He wants to call her a genius, but he’s gotten out of using that word. His hair smacks the top of Chihiro’s head and she giggles as he goes to kiss her forehead, too self-assured at the moment to think about his actions or feel embarrassed about his enthusiasm as he almost trips his way out of the dining hall, not even telling his girlfriend where he’s headed to. It’s obvious, anyway, and he hardly hears the people asking him where he’s running off to. If anyone’s going to scold him for that kind of behavior, it’s going to be Taka. At least that would get him to talk.

He has no definitive proof that Taka’s in his room, but he leans on the doorbell with his body buzzing. Kiyotaka does answer, and Mondo watches his eyes turn from irritated curiosity to something like fear and **YOU HAVE BEEN A BAD BROTHER. AGAIN. YOU HAVE FAILED. AGAIN. YOU ARE**

Mondo puts his hand on the door to keep Taka from shutting him out. It feels like he’s walked through spiderwebs as he leans in, eyes flickering over the scenery without really landing on anything. Taka hasn’t tried to close the door, indicate he should leave, done or said a single thing thus far to push him back. But here Mondo is, on the verge of collapse.

His eyes fall down the line of Taka’s body, past his lips and his neck to his chest as he breathes. If there’s a speech, Mondo doesn’t need to hear it. “You know we ain’t gonna stop bein’ friends, right?”

Back up, watching his chest hitch and stutter, his throat swallow. He isn’t the type to lick his lips when nervous, but Mondo watches his mouth move now, bottom lip caressed. In the quietest voice he’s ever heard Kiyotaka use, he asks, “What?”

He really should look somewhere else. Fixating on this point must make him look insincere, but if Taka starts crying he doesn’t know what he’ll do. The dizziness is back, and he feels his own body like an extension of something else: outside of his control. Tipping over. “Me an’ you. Just ‘cause I’m datin’ someone don’t change anything between us.” Taka’s lips are being pulled too thin. It isn’t any better than looking him in the eyes, so Mondo’s gaze trails up to the bridge of his nose. Just enough on the peripheral to avoid losing too much. “Yer still my best friend.” Taka’s not even looking at him anymore, unfocused just as Mondo is. “I still wanna hang out an’ eat lunch with ya and study or whatever. You don’t gotta…”

_That’s right. Like before. That’s what this feels like. Being pushed out of someone’s life because they have a new interest. Losing your place and your sense of worth. Being less important. Struggling to find a way to fit in. Lashing out in anger or minimizing yourself, hoping they care and not saying a damn thing about it because that’s all just…weak._

“Mondo?”

“I’m not replacin’ you,” he says. He has to really focus on Taka, on the way his brows furrow. Just like him and – “Yer not less important to me.” Losing someone else you can’t stand to lose because you’re – “So don’t – don’t isolate yerself, alright?” Everything else more important than you – “Even when I’m hangin’ out with Chi. You know she’s your friend too, right?”

There’s something screwed up about Taka’s expression and he wonders how often he’s had that same look on his face. There’s no one left to tell him if he has. He knows Kiyotaka cries when he’s frustrated, more often with himself than anyone else, and he watches Taka’s teeth dig into his lip. “I thought you would want – space, in the first… the first couple of days –“

He watches his hand move until it’s in Kiyotaka’s hair, locks soft against his fingers, more intense a sensation than the rest of his body is experiencing. “No,” he says. “’S just weird if you ain’t talkin’.” Taka makes some sort of strangled laughing sound and against some part of his brain that’s telling him not to push anything, Mondo drags Taka to press against his chest. Hugging isn’t weird between them; Mondo is physical by nature.

But there’s a shift. Taka usually stands still, back painfully straight, allowing himself to be touched without easing up at all. Even when he’s moving casually – a hand on Mondo’s waist, on his elbow, standing on his toes to get an arm around his shoulders – it feels too angled, unnatural. He moves like he’s just learning to, following instructions for assembly to the letter. Now, now, now – his hands press into Mondo’s back until he feels them, fingers squeezing at the fabric of his jacket. Mondo can’t feel much of his body as he starts to relax, starts to come back to the real world; but he feels that. Feels Taka.

And he feels something clunk into place in a far-off way, some cog pushing a clock into movement that he can’t see.

* * *

Things have been awfully turbulent for Kiyotaka Ishimaru. Most of his life before Hope’s Peak had been stable, stagnant. He didn’t have friends or much of a life outside of school. He woke up, he exercised, he went to school, he did homework, he slept. Most of his routine remained the same when he transferred, but with new things added in. Like classmates who actually wanted his opinion on things, who tried to get him involved in activities he didn’t specialize in, and who just generally wanted him around. Like a best friend, and his girlfriend.

Kiyotaka watches their hands brush together as they walk until Mondo’s fingers wrap around Chihiro’s, hands clasped. There’s this, too; his fingers curling to make his hand a fist, because his mind can’t help but wander. He imagines, without his own permission, what that sensation must feel like, how warm Mondo’s hand would be, the comfort of that kind of pressure. And his eyes dart away, feeling guilty, praying that he isn’t blushing.

So Kiyotaka Ishimaru might be gay. He might have had his suspicions about himself for a while now, but seeing Mondo and Chihiro interacting like this has only cemented it for him. The pangs he feels – they really couldn’t be anything other than jealousy. And not, as Mondo thinks, of the ‘I am afraid of losing my best friend’ variety.

They always mistake these moments when he lets his feelings get the better of him as him politely indicating that PDA is verboten in the halls. They hide their hands between their bodies so it’s harder to see, and somehow that makes it all worse. He doesn’t hate Chihiro, or dislike her at all, but his head and his chest clamor with irrational fear whenever he’s around her. She’s smart – no; that’s not what is. She is, but more importantly, she’s observant, and that’s where the danger lies. She could know, very easily, what Kiyotaka is thinking and feeling. And even if she wouldn’t tell, he can’t stand the thought of making her uncomfortable.

Of Mondo finding out somewhere along that line.

Of making _him_ uncomfortable.

He’s heard the vulgar saying before, that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone new. And while he has no intention of engaging in sexual intimacy with anyone just to rid himself of his now apparently _massive_ crush on his best friend, he thinks there might be some kernel of wisdom in its lewd suggestion. In other words, he’s now going to attempt to retrain his desires to focus on someone else. Preferably someone safe.

Kiyotaka knows going in that these feelings will be fake. It’s not his intent to lead anyone on, but since he also has no intention of coming out just yet anyway it should give him time to develop actual feelings for someone who might actually be capable of returning them. Or at the very least, someone whose total abandonment won’t kill him.

He shakes his head. His thoughts have, too often, been turning dark like that. He tells himself that Mondo wouldn’t discontinue his friendship over something like that. He couldn’t – they’re too close. He made a promise to stick by his side, no matter what. That memory stuck out to him, still vivid even four months later. He’d written it down in his diary so he’d never forget, but that hadn’t ever been an issue.

The tile, the steam, dry mouth and feeling like he might pass out again –

Mondo giving him this look like he was still so concerned, shaking his shoulder, his fingers on the back of Kiyotaka’s neck, telling him it might be nice to have another brother –

(kiyotaka trying to run away from that saying _you will get tired of me eventually everybody does nobody stays_, trying to laugh about it, and mondo said)

“Well you ain’t gettin’ rid of me that easy!” _his fingers through taka’s hair_ “It don’t matter what you do – hell, you commit murder? I’ll help you hide the body.” _he leans in too close with his arm around taka’s shoulders and laughs_ “Not that I could see you doin’ somethin’ like that.” _he’s never felt this kind of warmth and mondo’s eyes are so lightly colored how did he not know how did he not know_ “Seriously. You an’ me? We’re gonna be friends forever. And if I ever get halfway decent at this carpentry shit, I’ll build your house.” _he wouldn’t leave he wouldn’t leave h-_

“Hey, Taka. You mind if I sit here with you?” Safe. Speaking of. He looks up from the book he hasn’t been paying attention to and puts something close to a smile on his face, nodding for Makoto to join him. He hasn’t been paying much attention to…anything, really, recently. He’d even forgotten that he was on a lunch break, supposed to be studying. “You seem kinda lost in thought,” Makoto prompts. “Are you okay?”

This could work. He’s not exactly Taka’s type, or what he figures his type would be, based on what little he has to work with. But he is undeniably good, devoted to his friendships, open-minded… “I am a little overwhelmed, but it’s nothing I can’t deal with.”

Makoto nods. “Yeah, I can see that. I guess it’s kinda weird, huh? When two of your friends start dating. Hard not to feel like a third wheel.”

“I don’t think I’m familiar with that term.” But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“Oh, uh –“ Makoto scratches his cheek nervously. “It’s just – you know, you don’t really need a third wheel on a bike, right? It makes things uneven. Inevitably two wheels are gonna be next to each other, and the third’s just… an outlier, I guess.” He doesn’t quite blush.

But whatever expression it is he’s making, it’s cute anyway. “I guess that makes sense,” Taka says. “But I would think that having an extra wheel makes things more balanced.”

“On a bike, maybe, but for a car –“ he laughs. “Geeze! I think we’re putting too much thought into this.”

His laugh is almost infectious. Talking to him is…not talking to Mondo. But it’s easy. It’s not the same, but it’s something. It could work.

* * *

Mondo slams his locker door with enough force to put a dent in the goddamn thing and his only regret is that he didn’t put his own hand in the way to break it. Chihiro’s eyes go wide, and her hand on his arm has more force than it usually does. Maybe he just feels that way because he’s so tense, but he can’t help it. Why the _fuck_ is Taka spending so much time with Makoto?

He hits his head against his locker and lets out a few choice words directed at absolutely nothing. He can’t look at Chihiro; he knows she’s not afraid of him anymore, or so she says, but he’s sure there’s something like confusion or hurt in her face and he can only focus on one source of pain at a time.

It’s been a week. He wouldn’t say Taka is avoiding him, because he still joins them for lunch. But he joins them for lunch with Makoto and twice with Hina, and when he studies it’s with Makoto and when he’s talking to someone before class starts it’s Makoto and this shouldn’t be bothering him but god dammit he feels -

Replaced.

_(it shouldn’t matter. you’ve got a girlfriend now. who cares what Taka does with his time?)_

Or, more importantly,

_(he’s allowed to have friends other than you.)_

Her voice is more confident. That’s the kind of change he should focus on: how things have gotten better, not how they’ve gotten worse. “Mondo? What’s wrong?”

“_Nothin’!_” It’s not fair to lie to her like this, but what the hell’s he supposed to say? That won’t make him sound like a jackass? “I’m just bein’ an idiot.”

“I doubt it’s nothing if it’s upsetting you this much,” she says. Having his feelings validated shouldn’t hurt so damn much, but if he tells her – “You know, you can tell me what it is. That’s what you do in a relationship, isn’t it? Support each other?” Well, yeah, but – “Even if you think it’s not important, I want to help you…”

He lets himself breathe heavy for a couple of minutes, listening to make sure the two of them aren’t anywhere around before he grumbles, “’s Taka.”

Chihiro’s hand rubs up and down his arm. “Oh?”

Mondo gestures with one hand at where they had been standing five or however many minutes ago, laughing and talking about something generally not acknowledging Mondo was there. “He said anythin’ to me in a week.” Chihiro opens her mouth, but he can’t stop himself from talking over her. “Not anything meaningful, anyway. He’s always hangin’ around Makoto, and it just feels like we don’t really hang out anymore.” Chihiro looks up at him, eyebrows raised, expecting him to continue. And since this has actually succeeded in making him feel a little better, he does. “I know it don’t mean much, but I got so scared ‘a losin’ him when we first started datin’ and now it’s like… It’s happenin’ anyway. Like when Daiya’d get a new girlfriend and kinda forget about me for a while, and I just had ta fend for myself for a while. Find someone else to talk to.”

He moves his arm to rub the back of his head in embarrassment, Chihiro’s hand dropping down to his waist. “That doesn’t sound dumb at all. He has been sort of distant… Have you tried talking to him about it?”

“I don’t know how! How would I even start that kinda conversation? Just accuse him of avoiding me ‘r likin’ Makoto more than me?” His mind tries to fill in the blanks on the potential for that situation, imagination depicting him losing his cool and screaming while Taka just gets upset and cries, oblivious to having hurt Mondo’s feelings.

Or even worse, bitterly snapping back that he _was_ avoiding Mondo, filling in his absence with Makoto’s presence because Mondo picked Chihiro over him; that he’d only been lying when he said he was trying to give them space for their relationship, that he couldn’t be Mondo’s friend if –

“Mondo?” He’s been staring at the floor. He can see Chihiro’s shoes, the edge of her skirt, her socks. And he can’t make himself look up. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, I’m sure it’s not that bad.” He might make a noise akin to a whimper, pathetic and useless. “Makoto’s friendly with everybody here, I’m sure he’s just…working his way through our class, and it was Taka’s turn.”

Mondo’s brows furrow. “’S weird way of puttin’ it, Chi. You make it sound like speed datin’.” She laughs. “You really think that’s it? He ain’t just… Dunno, got sick of me?”

Chihiro giggles louder. “Mondo. Even when he’s not with you, you’re all he ever talks about. I’m sure Makoto knows more about you now than when it was your turn on the friendship-making train.”

He has to snort at that. “Train, huh? Izzat what they’re callin’ it these days?” She swats him. “I think you been playin’ too many dating simulators. Got somethin’ you wanna tell me?”

“Yes! Go talk to Taka.” Mondo rolls his eyes. “I’m serious. I’m sure he misses talking to you, too. But you know he’s not good at multi-tasking – neither of you are. Makoto probably gave him advice on talking to people, and he decided to study it instead of just doing it.”

He sighs. “God, yeah, that’s true. Treats everything like it’s school.”

And just like that, he can breathe easier, feels ridiculous for getting so worked up over an issue that had such an easy solution from the beginning. But he’s always been like that, in a way; it’s what makes his relationship with Chihiro work so well – and his friendship with Taka… What makes that worth holding onto. He just has to fix whatever it is that’s happened.

“I’ll talk to him once classes are over,” he promises, angling his head to kiss her cheek without smacking her with his hair. It’s like that with everything: just practice. Just getting it right. Things will be okay.

* * *

(They’re not.)

* * *

Kiyotaka is not a stranger to unpleasant things. People have said more than their fair share of nasty things about him, and over the years he has made it his goal never to give in to the urge to retaliate. People who rely on attacks of character only do so because they lack the evidence to back up their own claims. He’s been called stupid before, accused of being corrupt by peers whose families were affected by the stupid decisions of his grandfather. So he’s always made a conscious effort to find the best balance of being reserved, polite, keeping private things private, and being transparent.

And this letter in his locker cuts the thin line on which he’d been balancing.

He isn’t given much time to fully digest their contents and absolutely no time to try and determine who might have sent it. A teacher comes within seconds to escort him to a meeting with the Headmaster, a board room he’s never had reason to enter before. He doesn’t even stop to scold Hiro or the older student questioning him for skipping their classes before he leaves.

He’s never had much reason to even speak to the Headmaster before, and when he enters the room he finds not only Jin Kirigiri but two other men and three of his classmates waiting for him. The Headmaster begins with, “I have called you all here, because I have received word that you are being blackmailed,” and Kiyotaka tunes the rest of the conversation out.

It isn’t on purpose, but his anxiety drowns out every word being spoken. He can’t meet the eyes of anyone else or make out the exact words that they’re saying. He thinks he hears the words “murder” and “despair,” but only has a vague sense of how they’re connected. He sees his hand too-detailed, the floor beneath him blurry. He feels suddenly frozen, or freezing over, like when the throes of adolescence were at their worst and he awoke, sweating and dehydrated, to a fan plastering the moisture to his body and he shivered, covering himself back over with quilts he knew would only repeat the process.

Cyclic.

Toko tries to stutter her way through a rant while the administrators watch them through narrowed eyes. He understands what they must be thinking, even if he refuses to consider it himself. (He will, in time. He has to.) There is a likelihood that someone in this room is only pretending to be blackmailed, a way to insert themselves into the situation to gauge their reactions, assess the progress of the situation, perhaps even to revel in the chaos they’ve created.

He hears the word _murder_ again. Because that’s what they want: one of them to commit murder, to keep their secret hidden.

For the moment, Kiyotaka doesn’t care about who, or even much about why or how they found out. There is only one thing about which he is dreadfully certain: his own stance.

“I don’t care.” The words sound soft to him, but so many eyes float in his direction that he must have said it loudly enough. He sees one of the older men’s lips move, someone he thinks might be an alumnus, but he can’t parse what words he’s saying and it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, _doesn’t matter_. “I don’t care if they tell my secret. I’m not so much of a coward that I would kill someone to keep it hidden. To even consider such a thing is ludicrous.”

“M-maybe your secret’s just n-not that important,” Toko says. Her glasses sit askew on her face, braids coming undone as her fingers tug through them. “N-not all of us can be fucking _p-perfect!_”

Kiyotaka glowers at Toko and tries to swallow down some of the bile feel feels making its way up his throat, tries to bite back the irritated response that comes to mind first. He closes his eyes and forces himself to consider that she is – they all are – under incredible stress, and that it isn’t his place to pass judgment on anybody else.

And after he’s allowed himself a couple seconds to breathe, he answers. “Maybe my secret wouldn’t be that important to you. I can’t decide for you what it would be worth doing to keep it secret. But for me, killing someone would be worse than people finding this out. Even if it were to bring me some sort of harm –“ Mondo, he thinks, looks up when the words leave his mouth, the light from the windows casting shadow and looking so soft and _no, Kiyotaka, we cannot think about this now_ – “Killing someone to keep it secret wouldn’t solve anything. All it would create is more problems.”

He doesn’t want to wait and hear what Mondo will say, or Chihiro. There is a part of him that wonder if she knows what Mondo’s secret is and plummets. Would that be a better or worse thing to learn than the possibility that Mondo does not agree with him either?

He doesn’t want to hear. It’s selfish, so terribly selfish. But this is a case where, he thinks, he can allow himself to be a little selfish. He turns to the adult who’s been divulging all this information, body angled to the door and ready leave regardless of his classmates’ decisions. “Whatever method of contact you have with the blackmailer, let them know my decision.”

* * *

He doesn’t know how things always manage to do this. Go from looking up to damn near suicidal. He doesn’t even get the chance to meet up with Taka after class when he’s pulled out of it – him and Taka and Chi and Toko, for some reason. He’d think it was some sort of over-involved parental shit on Kirigiri’s behalf if it weren’t for that last one. They’re all being blackmailed, and even if he hasn’t checked his locker yet he knows, for a fact, what this piece of blackmail is. Because there’s no way it’s not about Daiya.

And his fears are confirmed when he goes by his locker. He doesn’t read the whole note, he got a good enough rundown at that meeting. He can’t imagine what in the world someone like Taka would have to hide, and even if she was condescending as shit about it he thinks that Toko must be right in thinking it’s not all that bad. Not only is it not something he’d kill over (but right, he was so right about that, Mondo wouldn’t, he _couldn’t_ -) but he’d held strong at the threat of having it exposed. Like it didn’t even matter.

He can’t imagine what Toko’s hiding either, but he doesn’t really care. He cares about Chi, about Taka, but even those emotions are muted under the wave that’s dragging him down under.

Kill someone, or have everyone find out he already did. And then he’ll lose both of them.

Whatever it is whoever this is has over them both – there’s no way it’s the same. No way it’s even close. Even if Mondo lives the rest of his life on the straight and narrow, it’ll never be enough to make up for everything he’s done. That one instance, and everything following it up. And now that he’s the one up on the plate, it’s his turn to shut down completely.

He doesn’t deserve either of them, anyway.

He thinks Chihiro is a little distant, too. She’s next to him, but only just. Stiff, space between them, only close enough for Mondo to know she’s still there. She looks between the three of them, and so does Toko. But Mondo never looks back. To his knowledge, neither does Taka.

(though he could be telling makoto.)

He doesn’t know how much time passes. All he knows is a class meeting is being held, and those two former students are trapping them all in a classroom with the guys from the year above, demanding to know who’s been sending blackmail, making threats, manipulating the reserve course. Whatever evidence they have, it’s not enough to single anyone out, or even determine which class it’s from. Someone – Junko, he thinks – questions how they even know it was one of the ultimates, and not one of the angered reserve course students.

Someone else asks why they can’t know what the blackmail is. And the voice sounds so familiar, but everything in Mondo’s head goes hazy, vision blurring over. It’s become like those races Daiya used to take him too – loud, and overwhelming. He hears people shouting and his blood racing and a sharp voice trying to cut through the din and get people to quiet down. He hears who he’s certain is Makoto saying that it shouldn’t matter what the blackmail is, but he’s overruled by the sheer demand. It’s going to descend into total anarchy.

“If you won’t be settled –“ _Taka._ “Then I will say –“ _Taka?_ “I am being blackmailed.”

He thinks he sees a lot in his peripheral vision and he feels so much alarm, watching Taka stand up. His hands are shaking, and it’s where Mondo’s gaze fixates. He feels compelled to move in his direction, but rooted by the silence. He doesn’t know how Taka does this. How he stands there and hears someone ask _What could YOU be getting blackmailed for?_

He watches his fingers shake, too pressed against his legs. For a moment Mondo thinks that he won’t say, and he wouldn’t blame him, and he doesn’t want him to speak and get mauled. They are vicious in here, they are predators, and he’s not ready to smell the blood of someone else he –

“I’m gay.”

It makes the noise stop everywhere, except in Mondo’s head. He hears it and he sees Taka’s hands go paler. And he wants to look up at him, but he can’t.

He wants to stand up with him, but he can’t.

He wants to chase after him, but he can’t. Once again his job, his role, his place in Taka’s life is taken up by Makoto Naegi, and he’s left with the silence filling up with murmurs and whispers and some kind of heinous laughter he can’t shout down because everything in his body is shut and locked. He shouldn’t have let Kiyotaka do that alone. And he should be standing up now, telling his classmates that if they have a problem they can talk to his fists. Or at the very least, he should be the one running down the hallway and getting winded, telling Taka that he’s not alone, he won’t be alone, that he’ll make it through this, that he’ll always stand by his side, but –

He’s not. If Makoto takes his place, he’s the better option. The friend Taka deserves. The boyfriend Chihiro deserves. The brother Daiya deserved.

(failed, step one.)

* * *

He tries to tell himself that in a fight, flight, or freeze scenario, he will always choose to fight. He has put it into his head that to run away is cowardly, to freeze means certain death. The only fighting he does now, is against himself; telling himself that running away in the situation he’d been placed in was only natural, even if his face is already stinging from the slaps he hasn’t given himself yet.

Weak. His grandfather was right. He’s weak.

But he ran away, too –

And at least Taka didn’t let this come down on him, didn’t want for this to fall out, put himself out like that, took control of the setting burning around him –

“Taka!” He doesn’t realize he’s stopped in his tracks until he hears sneakers smacking on the tile floor. He’s not surprised it’s Makoto chasing him, but the feeling echoes around in his body, uncomfortable and hollow.

_Shouldn’t I have moved on?_ “Makoto.”

There’s nothing else for him to say. He watches Makoto try to right himself, breathing heavy, hand on his chest. “I don’t know – don’t know who would blackmail you over that!” His cheeks are still flushed, eyes shining, and Taka could almost feel something heavier for that. _Almost_. “But I won’t let you go through this alone! Whatever it takes, I’ll help you deal with this!”

Even if it’s not the same feeling that he gets with Mondo, Taka believes it. Wholeheartedly. It doesn’t completely calm the fear, and even though Makoto stays with him for a couple hours, helps him to calm down, it comes creeping back at night. He never eats dinner, too strung out on nerves, and he sleeps far past his alarm clock but he doesn’t really feel any kind of way about it. There’s a note slipped under his door from Makoto that he tried coming by to wake him up and that if he wants to talk, he’s free all weekend. He’ll be in his room.

Eating. He should eat. He hasn’t eaten properly in weeks. Not since the letter in his locker that- no, he hasn’t even looked at it since then, can’t remember what was on it exactly, _won’t_ remember what was on it exactly. It would be better if he just forgot all about it.

It would be better if everybody else forgot, too. It isn’t as though the upperclassmen have ever paid him much attention, but it feels like they do now, only when he’s turned away. He feels spied upon; no different than when the note first arrived, but instead of a feeling that one person knows more than they should, it’s everyone around him. His own classmates, too. Even the ones who used to be friendly to him, view him from a distance.

His vision shadows down with a filter. Four months ago, he stood next to Mondo near here, trying to get an arm around his friend’s shoulders. People looked then, or so Mondo said, embarrassed and under his breath, blush bringing out the softer shades in his eyes. Kiyotaka didn’t feel it then, didn’t process anything but how it felt to be so close to someone, to matter.

No one’s there to shake him from his distance. His eyes slide back into focus, trained on Sayaka at the table adjacent. Their eyes meet and hers divert sharply, body turned to keep him from even looking in her direction.

She’s not the only one who’s distant. He doesn’t make his best efforts to reach out on Saturday or Sunday, but almost everyone he sees turns away. Once he sees Chihiro going back to her room, eyes bloodshot and face puffy. She waves, but doesn’t talk, only sighing and heading inside. Kyouko offers him a nod and what he thinks might be a small smile on her way somewhere else.

No one tries to talk to him. Not even Mondo.

He wants to be upset. But he feels nothing.

Monday morning, he does. He feels dread.

Having things start to collide is no reason, he thinks, to break up his routine. He awakens. He stretches. He showers. He puts on his clothes. He moves toward the dining hall.

His routine is broken there. It’s not unusual for him to eat breakfast by himself, to let the people in his class he considers positive acquaintances filter around him even if he doesn’t participate much in their conversation; but this morning he’s beaten to his usual table by Sakura and Hina. He expects the same sort of glares or embarrassed diversions he’s been getting from Leon, from Toko, the snorts of derision from Byakuya. But Hina doesn’t turn away, spoon in her mouth as she waves him over.

Kiyotaka doesn’t know what to expect. Hina covers her mouth with her hand and says something that sounds garbled in the slow-motions his brain is receiving things. Sakura leans closer to reiterate, “How are you feeling?”

There’s no polite way to ask why they care, so he won’t. “I don’t.”

“That is to be expected,” Sakura says. She inclines her head in a nod, and slides a plate of toast, eggs, rice – far too much in his direction. “You haven’t been eating,” she says. “I’m going to make sure you do it now.”

He blinks, but he can’t make his mouth work. He almost jolts when Hina’s hand touches his shoulder, watching her swallow behind her hand before she tries speaking again. “For whatever it’s worth, I don’t think you have anything to be embarrassed about.” She punctuates her words by bringing her arms up, fists clenched, ready for a fight. “You took that totally shitty situation and you owned it!”

“No one’s spoken to me,” he says. It strange, how different his voice sounds. Strained, lacking volume.

“They will come around,” Sakura says.

“And if they don’t, who needs ‘em?” Hina adds.

* * *

“Mondo.” Uh oh. He knows that tone. It’s the we-need-to-talk tone.

Mondo’s fingertips go chill along with his back, his sides, swallowing too much spit in his mouth. “Yeah?”

Chihiro’s not looking at him, eyes on her food as she picks at her rice. She’s only eaten a little, and he knows what that means, too. _Nerves_. And it’s taking a lot for him not to panic too hard, tell her to spit it out, internal monologue already operating at a shout. He rubs his hands on his thighs and watches her face, unblinking, as her mouth finally opens. “Uhm. It’s about Taka.”

To say that he has no idea where this is going is an understatement. He feels like he’s been turned around by force, and looks down at his own food, frowning. “What about him?” The tone of voice and everything – were they fighting? Was she upset about him being – No, she wouldn’t be upset about him being gay. That was ridiculous. So it had to be the former, right? She was crying two days ago. He hadn’t seen either of them, but she could have seen him. “You guys get in a fight ‘r somethin’?”

“No,” she says, and he can just sense a follow-up he won’t like and he feels something like… Like when the hackles raise on a dog. “It’s just, uhm.”

He hates this feeling of agitation, and it’s all he feels right now. His moods have been in flux since the letter, worse since the meeting. He bounces between feeling nothing at all, unaware of the passage of time, and feeling too much all at once, like everything caving in on him while the clock moves agonizingly slow. There are two people he has made a concerted effort not to lose his patience around: his girlfriend, and his best friend, and putting those two in conflict is the worst case scenario he can possibly think of.

_ (I would feel the same if it was the other way around if it was Taka having issues with Chi I would -)_

“_What?_” He doesn’t mean to snap it that way, teeth clicking when he hits the T. This is the most he’s spoken in three? in four? in eight? days, and Chihiro looks startled and for a second something inside of him bends, gets colder and then goes numb and blank. He almost thinks he isn’t seeing anything at all until he refocuses his gaze and sees Chihiro’s eyes, wide but not lined with tears.

At the beginning of the year, she would have been sobbing. Now she only looks…decided on something. “Are you in love with him?”

He wants to laugh. In fact, his first reaction _should_ have been to laugh. He stares at her for a moment, not processing an answer, just his own thoughts. He didn’t laugh… He didn’t laugh… Because that would have been wrong. Yeah. Being gay isn’t some sort of joke. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s not an insult, no reason to react with humor or anger, even if the question came so far out of left field. “No,” he says, and the flat tone of his response doesn’t fall deaf on his own ears. “What makes you ask that?”

Chihiro’s eyes have turned back to her rice, fingers rubbing her lower lip as she thinks. “I don’t know how to explain it,” she confesses. “The two of you are very close. I know that’s normal for friends, but you’re also…weird around him.”

“Weird how?” Like how all his tone has suddenly disappeared?

“Well, since he’s come out, you won’t talk to him.” He freezes, hands gripping his chopsticks too tightly. They could break under the pressure, if he isn’t careful, and that wouldn’t – that would look _weird_. “He’s very worried, rarely leaves his room anymore. But if anybody else brings him up in conversation, you get defensive.”

(six days. it’s been six days) “How so?” Is that all he can do? (since he came out, sixteen since the letter) Ask questions?

The look on Chihiro’s face is starting to deteriorate from thoughtful to annoyed. He’s rarely seen this side of her, her patience is so strong. “Well,” she starts, voice stronger, louder, “When I first said I wanted to talk to you about him, you got…guarded. Your hands tensed, you scowled, and you started to lose your patience. I could almost see you working through your options. You were thinking which one of us you could live without.”

“WHAT?!”

“And now you’re shouting,” she continues. “It’s like you’re scared to talk to him, but you don’t want anyone else to talk about him either. And when I asked you if you were in love with him, it took you three minutes to respond. Your words were clearer when you were asking me why I thought so then they were when you said no.” She blinks, and he doesn’t know how she can be so calm when she’s asking him this. “You had to think about it, Mondo.”

Mondo doesn’t know how to start with a response, but he knows he can’t begin to formulate one while she’s looking at him like that. He pulls his eyes away to stare at his food, appetite missing, but he picks at it anyway, making himself eat. “Didn’t wanna say some homophobic shit on accident, y’know?” She doesn’t. He’s almost entirely sure she doesn’t. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with bein’ gay. Ain’t like it’s an insult, right? An’ if I over-react like that – that’d hurt his feelin’s.”

“He’s not here right now, Mondo.” She doesn’t even give him a second to breathe. “And you haven’t spoken to him in six days. You’ve barely spoken to me in _six_ days, but it’s the longest I’ve seen you go without talking to _him_ since you got locked in the sauna together.” She sets down her chopsticks and turns to face him. “I’m going to ask you again. And… I’m not mad, if you are. And I’ll believe whatever answer you give me, but I think it’s best for us both if you think about it. Are you in love with Kiyotaka Ishimaru?”

He doesn’t know why his tongue still sticks to the roof of his mouth, now that he’s had time to process the question. There should be no shock, no trip, no confused thrumming in his chest.

Fear. It just has to be fear. Fear that Chihiro won’t believe him when he answers, even though she says she will. “No, Chi,” he says, telling himself the lack of tone is just calmness. “I’m not in love with Kiyo.”

She blinks, and for a second he sees confusion and disbelief start to darken the hues. But she shakes her head, and smiles. She laughs, but it sounds hollow and forced. “Alright, then.” She turns back to her food, but he sees her hands are almost trembling. He opens his mouth to ask about it, but her voice is still loud when she continues, “You still need to talk to him. I’m not the one you need to convince you’re not a homophobe.”

“I will,” he promises. “After class. You can force me, if you think that I won’t.” She laughs, and he does too. He’s not sure which one of them sounds more forced, or if the air between them feels any less tense as they finish and head back to class, fingers linked but not too tightly. Holding on, but just barely. She hasn’t asked him what his secret is, and he hasn’t asked about hers.

He wonders if he should have asked Kiyotaka. The consuming pit in his stomach says yes.

The look Makoto is giving him as he walks into the classroom is as scathing as he thinks it’s possible for the guy to get. Chihiro takes her seat near the back, seemingly tuned out to everything around her, and he can’t say he blames her. Makoto’s brows hardly have the definition or aggressive nature that Taka’s do, but he’s pulling off a pretty decent approximation of pissed off. He doesn’t stand, but his body turns in his seat, and he calls out, “Hey, Mondo?” in a voice that makes it clear Mondo has no choice but to talk to him.

So he guesses he’ll have to wait before he can talk to Taka. “Yeah?”

Makoto leans forward on his arms, against the desk. Still not physically intimidating, but there is something to be said for the pressure he’s applying. “You better not be thinking of breaking off your friendship with Taka over this.”

_Just hit me where it hurts, why dontcha?_ “Fuck no. The hell makes you even think that?”

Like everything else in his life, it’s just posturing. He knows damn well what makes Makoto think that, and he’s probably sweating bullets because Makoto doesn’t look convinced. “You’ve been avoiding him, Mondo. Ever since he came out to the class, you’ve been distant –“

“’Cause I been dealin’ with my own shit,” he snaps. “I’m gonna talk to him after class –“

“You’d better!” Makoto rarely shouts, so when he does the effect is something else entirely. Something in Mondo’s chest feels constricted and anxious, the colors he’s seeing all distorted. He doesn’t get why this means so much to Makoto _(he’s the class friend he’s everyone’s friend he’s just like -)_ unless he _(Makoto’s just being nice he just cares about Taka’s wellbeing since you haven’t been -)_ and Taka are – “I don’t think you can call yourself a man if you turn your back on someone over something like that.”

Mondo hits the table and Makoto flinches, bravado forgotten for a moment. And Mondo feels embarrassed, but he’s not sure what part of this whole situation is getting to him the worst: how it all looks, being called out like this, losing his temper when he’d been so good about reigning it in…

He breathes heavily, forcing himself to swallow and count to ten. The words twist in knots in his head as he tries to form words, some kind of explanation, something that won’t be too much when three-quarters of their classmates are watching him break down. “Like I said, I just got caught up in my own shit. Know I gotta apologize to ‘im when I see him. But it ain’t that he’s gay. Ain’t got a fuckin’ problem with that, and if anyone does –“

“Are you sure?” It’s not Makoto this time, not any voice he’s used to hearing and the proximity makes him jump.

“’Course I’m sure. The fuck kinda question even is that?”

Junko tilts her head at him, hand covering half of her mouth, concealing what he’s sure is a rather unpleasant expression. “Well, you know. It’s just that, if it were me, I think I’d be a little freaked! Like, what if he’s into you?”

It comes at him again, that he should have some kind of humored reaction to the possibility he’s been given. The idea that Kiyotaka would find him attractive is utterly absurd, and maybe if he weren’t feeling cornered he’d even snort at the idea. All he does is blink, confused. “That ain’t gonna happen.” He gestures at himself. “Do I look like the kinda guy he could bring home to his cop father?”

“Well, you know what they say –“ Junko’s expression doesn’t change much, but her tone is suddenly flat, morose, though her hands are waving, fingers wiggling. “Good girls always want bad boys, right? So maybe it’s the same with gay dudes, too. And he’s like, the ultimate good, right? And you’re kinda the ultimate bad –“

“Junko,” Makoto says, voice an exhausted warning.

(but she has a point.)

(he is the ultimate bad.)

(why is taka even friends with him?)

(he can’t even get the supportive friend shit right.)

“- and you guys are like, super close!” _How’s she change her emotions so quick?_ “So what if he’s, like, been pining over you all this time?! That would be like, super creepy –“

“Hell no it wouldn’t!” He’s been keeping his eyes fixed on Makoto, because something about the fashionista makes him so uneasy. But when she says that, implies there’s something gross about his _kyoudai_ – “Even if that did happen, which it ain’t, I could do fuckin’ worse than Kiyotaka Ishimaru.”

He feels some immediate grief wash over him, that his words all felt wrong. Junko seems to take a second to assess him, totally blank, before her eyes and expression grow bored again. He thinks he hears her call him lame before she saunters off, leaving him staring at the floor.

“Mondo…”

Makoto’s voice is like a wave in the ocean again, calming, but it doesn’t pull him to ease. “I didn’t mean it like that,” Mondo mumbles. He hears Makoto sigh, weary, and before he can think through his words, he says, “I could do worse, only ‘cause it’s impossible to do any better than Taka.”

When he looks back, Makoto has this expression on his face…something that Mondo can’t quite interpret. His eyes seem brighter, like he’s seeing something new, and Mondo shuffles off to his seat before he can stick his foot any farther down his throat.

* * *

(he doesn’t see taka in the doorway, face pink, smiling for the first time in six days, breathing for the first time in sixteen, feeling hopeless, knowing he’s in farther than he ever planned.)

* * *

(and he doesn’t see chihiro, either.)

* * *

Having overheard, he knows that Mondo will be coming to speak to him sometime before the day is out, and even if he doesn’t, he knows why. There’s a relief on him, or off him. Whichever way, the excitement billows up too much through his chest to his face, and he _feels_ again. It’s not perfect, and he’s not quite elated. Toko and Byakuya and Leon and Sayaka still avoid him, but Hina and Sakura and Makoto are more involved, Chihiro is going back to normal, Kyouko is how she has always been, and Mondo will becoming back soon too. Things are, he thinks, as good as they are going to be, given all consideration.

His reforming confidence trips him up. Or, rather, his vigilance down, he doesn’t notice a smack to his knee until he trips, papers flying across the floor. He’d attribute it easily to his own frazzled state, but he hears words accompany the actions that broken floorboards don’t use.

But there are bandaged hands helping him sort. He looks up with some surprise – it’s not often the upperclassmen go out of their way to interact, and what Gundham Tanaka was doing on the fifth floor he can’t imagine. “The dark gods will be coming after her,” he says, of the girl who’d sent his papers scattered through the hallway.

Kiyotaka wonders if he’s referring to his hamsters. “Thank you?” he says, unsure what the appropriate response to this certain dialect is.

“Mortals are such petty creatures,” Gundham replies. “It is one of many reasons life is better in the company of hellbeasts. Such vessels do not lie, for it is not in their nature.”

He’s never a pet before, but he nods and says “Sure” as their fingers brush beneath paper.

“Though you are bold for a mortal, which leads me to wonder…” Kiyotaka looks up to his face, half-obscured by a scarf. He sees a bulge moving along the lines of the fabric, just underneath where his fingers tug at the swath. “If this mortal drinks coffee?”

Something in him sparks, almost surprised. He’d almost be certain that he’s reading the situation wrong, but something’s telling him that he’s not. And he’s attractive, Taka thinks; unconventional, and uncompromising. Passionate. They were things he could admire. Things he could be interested in learning more about.

“I’ve never had much coffee before,” he says, “But I’d be willing to try.”


	2. i think we're close enough, could i lock in your love?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> read chapter notes for warnings!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y’all! Thought I’d start this chapter off with some warnings more in detail. In general, this chapter is a lot about, uh, mental illness, probably more so than I was initially planning on focusing on it. Mondo’s sections have him dealing with PTSD and depression. Taka’s sections have him start dealing with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (shoutout 2 my friends who encouraged me to write about that).
> 
> I don’t go into too much graphic description of intrusive thoughts here, but I think you can probably get the gist of what Taka’s experiencing. I don’t really know how they’ll come across to people who don’t experience them, so I wasn’t really sure of what to put in the tags other than the general tag. I also don’t really wanna get into it in the comments, because too much talk about it can be kind of triggering; however, if you need any OCD resources or want to talk about it in general, feel free to hmu about it.
> 
> On that note, I also need to warn that there is some implication of self-harm as a compulsion. There’s no description of anyone actually hurting themselves, but I wanted to warn about it anyway!
> 
> There’s also mentions of throwing up in this chapter, but it’s not graphic, and mentions of violence and underage drinking that I don’t think is too graphic. There’s a super brief reference to past domestic abuse in one of Mondo’s sections, but there’s really no detail about it.   
Finally, I decided to update the tags to incorporate Chihiro being a trans girl in this fic. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do re: Chihiro and their gender when I started this fic, but that’s where I settled. Again, I will not be accepting comments about this.
> 
> (also sorry that I don't really know how to write anyone from dr3, I tried ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯)
> 
> **songs for this chapter –**  
\- [Latch by Disclosure ft. Sam Smith](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0jLE7tTwjY)  
\- [Lessons in Love by Kaskade ft. Neon Trees](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQfRLriAxjA)  
\- [I’m Not in Love by 10cc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC2HkP5gR2g)  
\- [Do I Wanna Know? by Arctic Monkeys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpOSxM0rNPM)  
\- [All To Myself by Marianas Trench](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O29ia3XH7o8)  
\- [Talk About You by MIKA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH30OyVXuK0)  

> 
> I actually have a Spotify mix for this fic if anyone wants it ;;

Things are going, altogether, kind of nicely. Kiyotaka Ishimaru can’t say that very often. In fact, he wasn’t even very sure he could say that at the beginning of summer break. He hadn’t really wanted to leave school, the comfort and safety classmates he knew, friends he was gaining, the best friend he had made, his – his _boyfriend_. The thought which… still felt quite odd, to be honest. Things weren’t perfect at the end of the semester. It’s not as if he didn’t notice a few of his classmates avoiding him, shooting him looks when they thought he couldn’t see. It would have been harder to tell with Toko – she was being blackmailed as well, never had been one for socializing from the start, but he’d seen her looking at him with worry and then with fury when he looked back.

It sucked. There wasn’t a better way to term it. But he knew those reactions, and even with Chihiro and Mondo distant in whatever secrets they were dealing with, those were roads he had mapped for. Home was something different.

His father had been warned ahead of time. Kiyotaka wasn’t pleased with that. Headmaster Kirigiri decided to tell him this right before he left to get on the train. He’d been saying goodbye to Makoto and Kyouko, and watched the latter’s face get eerily icy, excusing herself and following her father around the corner. Makoto wasn’t _pleased_ either, and Taka watched his face try to stretch around anger to stay upbeat, squeezing Taka’s arm and saying, “If you need some place to stay, you have my number.”

And his father was understandably upset – at the school. He paced as he ranted, scratching the dry skin on his hands and Taka dug his nails into his pants. He could have sighed in relief, because the reaction certainly could have been worse, but this was still raking up his anxiety. It wasn’t intentional, he was sure, but there was only so much he could take in.

Takaaki had stopped and turned to him, rubbing the back of his neck. “I… Well, I wish you had told me yourself.”

“I wasn’t given the option,” he replied.

His father’s hand dropped for a moment, before going back up to his head, applying pressure at the first sign of a headache. Taka listened to him make a noise, well-aware that it’s one he made himself all the time, and watched his father try to get his breathing even. “You’re not in trouble,” he said, words clipped, “But I need to go for a walk. I’ll be back.”

It was a conflict of interest for Kiyotaka, so they didn’t talk about the entire incident beyond that. It was… _something_, though. He still studied, made time to call Gundham and Makoto and tell them both how things went. Started to dial Chihiro’s number and stopped himself when his brain reset his mind and he couldn’t think of what to say. He rang Mondo twice and got a full mailbox both times. Probably out with his gang, so he’d have to work through it all some other time.

He just wishes he knew what to say.

So like his father, he goes on walks.

His brain tries to move along in lists or formats like outlines. Section I, the Introduction. His mind recites the preamble, Section A thesis statement skipped. He can’t make a hypothesis without looking at the facts objectively, but –

But –

Then he has to talk to himself about what he knows. About all the things at school (and school, he loves school, loves learning, likes to be in a place where he has friends and is appreciated) that bother him, that don’t fit any sort of moral guideline. Surely you wouldn’t become headmaster at an academy like this if you didn’t care for the student population, didn’t want to see them safe, and yet –

And yet –

He wouldn’t tell Kiyotaka’s father, a police officer, about the blackmail when it happened. Only that his son was gay, and that the conditions surrounding his coming out were less than positive. That Kiyotaka himself hadn’t been given adequate forewarning about this, when suddenly dropping him into that situation could have been dangerous. What about Toko’s parents, or Chihiro’s or Mondo’s extended family, wherever they may be? Were any of them told? Would his classmates troubling secrets be passed along without their consent as well, when whatever fallout to come passes?

He hasn’t realized he’s stopped in his tracks, legs unbearably straight and knees stuck together. His head is bent and he needs to breathe, to remember to relax. To listen to the world around him, eyes closed as he listens to the kids in the field next to him playing. Breathe out, and open his eyes.

He looks over and his brain… glitches, he guesses he could say. It shows them all there, but they’re all - **NO.**

Sick. He feels – like his stomach has rolled and tangled his lungs in the process. He presses his hand flat against his chest, where he feels it all thrumming like one of Kuwata’s bass-heavy songs turned up too loud to handle. And it feels – it _feels_ – like any time he’s fallen asleep on his hands and awoken unable to feel them, bruising them against the bed frame in an attempt to wake the rest of his body up. Cold, but drenched in sweat. Like he needs a shower. Or something stronger, to clean off the grime of his sudden thoughts. Like a fire to singe the surface off.

His jacket feels too tight, all of a sudden. He swallows, and feels the collar move against his throat at a tilt, uneven. He breaks his lip under his teeth and tugs to get the fabric even, straight, ordered, _right_.

And the thought, thoughts, pass. For the first time he feels a relief as the wave it’s so often been described as been, and he closes his eyes, fingers pressed hard against his throat. Something feels unsafe where his other dangles useless by his side, like something could press against them at any moment, even –

NO! NO NO NO NO NO NONONONONONONO

The hand on his collar button moves in guided trajectory, hitting his dangled fingers hard enough to startle the birds on the sidewalk, sending them flying scattered. Tears push up on his eyes and his lips let out a pathetic sob.

_Mondo. Call Mondo. I have to._ It’s what he should do. Because that’s his – his best friend, and he can trust him, even if he can’t trust anybody else to understand. To really get it, to get him. Mondo always knows what to say.

(and if kiyotaka comes home with a lighter in his pocket from the drugstore mondo is the last person who will think to judge him for it.)

* * *

(somewhere in his room, under all his blankets and dirty laundry, mondo is

just starting to realize. an entire week of summer break has gone by.

and he's not sure if he's even eaten yet.)

* * *

Taka presses his fingers against his throat as he swallows, nails pinching and pinching and piercing into the skin. He tries to keep his focus steady and his body still so he doesn’t go for his pocket. Emergencies. He bought it not to use it except in cases of emergencies and never on himself, on candles. They have so many candles, he can just light one of those and watch it –

“H’llo?” When Mondo picks up, his voice sounds heavier than it had during the school year. Deeper. Maybe it’s just Taka’s memory of how things had been. It’s soothing, but he sounds distracted.

There’s something in Taka’s throat stuttering. He can’t do this. He shouldn’t do this, put this kind of a problem on his friend, his best friend. Not like this. Not when he’s busy. Not over this, when he’s going to have to stop Mondo from whatever he’s doing and probably enjoying doing to put this on him, on his list of things to do when this is so much.

But his mouth and his brain… Are not in synch. “What would you do if I wasn’t a good person?” The words stumble out of him, uncontrollable and directionless. He almost bursts into tears when he feels them leave his lips, hand digging into his pocket and thumb digging into metal.

“Taka?” He hears shifting and shutting, a door closing on the other end and Mondo’s voice softer and lighter. “_Kyoudai?_ Wha’ssup, man? The hell’d that question come –“

“I’M SORRY!” Kiyotaka finds himself shouting. He flusters, body just sort of doing whatever it wants. In an attempt by his hand to free itself from his pocket, he flusters and accidentally throws his lighter under the cabinet. The one filled with the candles he’s supposed to use instead of his hand.

“You don’t have to – what was – “ Taka drops the phone on the floor when he does, lying on his stomach to try and reach the fallen lighter under the cabinet. He can feel everything in himself start to shake again, every thought cascading painfully.

His fingers hit cold metal and listen to the body scrape across the floor as he digs the lighter out, feeling ashamed as he rights himself. His uniform is creased now, pulled up at odd angles he adjusts with a little too much force. It all feels too loud. Everything in his mind is screaming. Telling him to redo it. All of it. Again. Do it perfectly. Do it without messing up. Do it without rustling your uniform. Do

“TAKA! YOU THERE? Shit, Christ, where’re my fuckin’ shoes –“ Something on the other end that sounds almost like glass breaking makes him stop, forehead against the wall and seconds from slamming himself against it until all the noise just stops. He feels it again, the need to scream, like he’s losing control.

And he doesn’t. Somehow. “Mondo? Are- Are you okay?”

“Fucking _hell_, Taka, you can’t ask me som’in like that.” It sounds like something heavy drops. “Are _you_ okay?”

“I.” He can almost feel his lips moving, like he’s pantomiming speech. It’s one of those… _things_; one of those mental blocks where he feels like the road ahead has gone out, and he has to go around. “Glass?” he asks, and takes a second to try and remember why he’s asking it.

“Glass?” Mondo repeats. It sounds like he shuffles or moves the phone between hands. And he hears something crumple, too, and wonders if Mondo steps on something under his feet. “Oh, yeah. I…” Nothing. Kiyotaka spaces out in the silence until he just doesn’t anymore, and worries for a second that Mondo’s stopped talking because he’s asked him something, or that he’s hung up, or even that Taka had continued tal- “I dropped something.”

It’s muttered. And so, so quiet. “Can I come over?”

He doesn’t know why he asks, what makes it come into his head. He’s never been over to someone else’s house to hang out, doesn’t even have a way of getting there. But he doesn’t feel safe here, by himself, and he can’t exactly expect his father to stay at home with him in case this happens again.

(and it will.)

(it’s happened before,)

(now that he thinks about it.)

And just talking to Mondo makes him feel. Safe.

But now there’s also – he didn’t think – he should have asked if he can stay the whole time – until they go back to school, he can’t assume he’s- “Hell yeah you can!”

Oh. He digs his teeth into his bottom lip, shredding the skin. There’s still a _something_ that’s making him feel shaky, dragging his nails against his covered legs like he could tear the fabric into holes if he put more force behind it. And he doesn’t remember hanging the phone up, but at some point in time, he must.

* * *

Mondo Oowada lays on his back and stares up at his ceiling and tries to pretend the marks of water damage on the walls don’t remind him of his friends. His mattress is getting uncomfortable again. He knows Daiya would tell him to flip the damn thing, but that won’t help the fact that he’s had the same one since he was ten. It used to be too big for him, and now it’s too small. He could take Daiya’s, but that would just feel…

Wrong.  
What’s he need it for, anyway?  
Even if he can’t bear to sell it.

He sighs and rolls onto his arm, hoping the pressure will cut off all circulation. It’ll turn blue and he’ll need to amputate. _Whatever_. He’s just waiting for Taka to call him again, let him know if his dad’s cool with him coming over for the remainder of break. That’s only, what? Four days if he says no. And if Mondo heads back to school early, so he doesn’t have to hang around here and look at the potted plants he managed to kill after leaving Michi strict instructions on taking care of them while he was out at school.

Jesus Christ.

_I should call my girlfriend._

He presses his eyes against his arms and sighs. He should, he really should, but if Taka calls him back and he misses it. Well. It’s Taka, so there won’t be another call. He’ll freak out, probably, if their last phone conversation was anything to go on. And Chihiro would understand that, he thinks. And if she doesn’t, that’s just another mess he’ll clean up when he gets to it. He wasn’t really all there or even a little there for either of them throughout the whole last end of the previous school year. Which he can barely remember.

Except something about Leon and Sayaka and Toko and Byakuya avoiding Taka and Chihiro being distant and Taka spending a lot of time with the upperclassmen because he has **_ a boy friend_** now.

Right. That. That thing he’s okay with even if it kinda makes his throat swell up with _you goddamn hypocrite you got upset when I started dating chihiro and promised you things wouldn’t change and then you started seeing someone and it’s fine for you to split your time_ –

(But it’s not like he can understand Taka, right, he deserves someone to talk to about that kind of thing.  
Because Mondo isn’t gay or whatever and doesn’t know about that thing.  
That “liking boys” thing.)

And it’s not like Mondo was really around for that, either. For any of it. And he has memories where he’s standing in the hallway with Taka and Chi both and keeps thinking that really, things didn’t change that much, it’s just his head telling him to be angry about unresolved issues he really should deal with but really doesn’t want to. And he can see it, see them, but can’t hear a goddamn thing, like when he’s on his bike and he sees everything going past but his ears are just filled with the sound of the world drowning.

Yeah. Yeah. He’s still being blackmailed. And he’s got those letters and threats that feel like mountains stacked up on his dead brother’s bed because his avoidance issues have a sick sense of humor. He’s an asshole.

He feels the phone buzz in the hand he barely feels and sits up with more energy than he’s had over the past week. He didn’t listen to a single message in his voicemail box, just cleared out the room in case Taka called and managed to fuck things up somehow. His head spins as he answers and he almost topples off the bed. “Yeah, Taka?”

Something in him prods at what he’d do if it wasn’t, if it was Chihiro. Because she probably won’t appreciate him assuming every call he gets is from Ishimaru. “Yes. It’s me.” But it _is_ him. “My father said it’s okay. Um, so. I will see you tomorrow.”

And he will see him tomorrow.

Taka’s not good with the phone. It’s a little thing, something so small and insignificant that still manages to surprise Mondo despite not being, in all reality, that much of a surprise. The line just clicks when Kiyotaka’s done talking, and Mondo, head clear, looks around the room he’s shut himself in, and realizes he has a lot of shit to clean up before Kiyo comes over.

Which is why Michi is here. Right now, when he hears the door unlock and his back still kind of tenses even after five years of it not being **them**, because fear responses don’t stop as quickly as they should do. And even though Mondo thinks it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference or even be better if it was someone coming to <strike>kil</strike> attack him, <strike>kil</strike> hurt him, <strike>kil</strike> smash his back, shatter his spine, cave his skull in –

“Jesus Christ, boss. You ain’t even been here two weeks, the fuck did you do here?” He can’t even muster up the energy to tell his junior to shut it. He just kind of shrugs and…

Well. He’d collapse on the couch, but there’s really nowhere to sit. The damn thing’s just littered in empty takeout boxes.

Michi doesn’t bother commenting on it, but he does look at Mondo with his eyebrows raised. Mondo’s prone to snap when irritated, and it’s probably more worrying that he doesn’t even do that. “Alright. Enough of that.” Takemichi smacks him in the chest with an empty garbage bag. Somewhere in the back of his head he wonders if it’s the depression that makes the hit feel harder, or if Michi’s just gotten stronger since Mondo’s been at school. “You got your boy comin’ over, what, tomorrow? An’ you said he’s a bit of a neat freak, so he’s gonna lose it if he sees this shit.” He nods at the couch, and gestures to the rest of the living area with his arm. _Having control of the gang for the year sure gave him a lot of self-confidence_. “You start with that, and then maybe like, take a fucking shower? I’ll do the dishes.”

Mondo stands, staring at the floor for a couple seconds. If Michi was like them, he could get Mondo motivated real easy. Just scream at him until does it all out of spite, trying not to let anyone else see him crying. Can’t do that shit. Just gives them something else to dig at.

He doesn’t. He just lets Mondo stand there like a fucking moron and starts up the dishes, singing off-key to himself, changing the lyrics around to swear every once in a while.

So Mondo, for once, does what he’s told.

* * *

Mondo’s friends are… odd. Not bad. They are – his mind rails against the over-usage of the phrase, but – “rough around the edges.” Kiyotaka’s met quite a few delinquents before, usually in his attempts to get them to show up to class, stop smoking, dress appropriately. [He hears the phrase “two out of three ain’t bad,” but can’t recall where he might have heard it before.] So he is not expecting his _kyoudai_’s other friends to like him much. It took, after all, quite a lot for Mondo himself to like Taka, so he’d planned on meeting Takemichi – in the five minutes preparation time before he actually rounded the corner and ran into them – at his absolute most polite and reserved in terms of his opinions, keeping in mind not to take offense to whatever knee-jerk reaction Takemichi might have to…well. Him. Because he’d assumed, for whatever reason, that Mondo either hadn’t told his gang friends at all about Taka, or if he had told them, he’d probably spared details. So needless to say, he wasn’t expecting to be hit on.

Or – well, that isn’t the _first_ reaction Takemichi has to him. He gives him a rather formal introduction that gives Kiyotaka the impression that he’d practiced it, and it’s nice to see Mondo fluster in embarrassment about somebody else’s behavior. He doesn’t get the struggled sigh of the other’s name out of his mouth before Takemichi says, “Kiyotaka, right? ‘Course I’d recognize you. Nice ta finally meet the boss’ boyfriend.”

Kiyotaka doesn’t think it’s possible to develop tinnitus spontaneously, but his ears do ring and he’s not the least bit certain what his face is doing but he’s almost entirely sure it would be funny in hindsight.

“He’s not my boyfriend, Michi!” Mondo’s voice is easily an octave higher than normal. Hearing it almost makes Kiyotaka laugh, not helped at all that the arm around his shoulders just gets tighter and probably furthers the misconception.

Takemichi looks between the two of them, eyebrows raised. “…Really?” he asks.

“Yes, really!” Mondo snaps. “I told you I got a girlfriend. Chihiro.”

If he’s expecting there to be some kind of apology, it doesn’t come. Takemichi loses interest in Mondo’s self-defense, staring up at Taka with a smirk. “Alright then. So, you single?”

Taka actually does laugh that time, a little nervous and, quite honestly, incredibly flattered. “Er – no,” he says, Mondo’s hand so tight on his shoulder that it pinches, “my apologies.”

Michi shrugs, not losing his composure. “Aight, but if that changes –“

“_Michi!_” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but his friend clearly gets the message and stops his attempts to flirt with Taka. Not that it seems to help Mondo, at all; he doesn’t relax for the entire time they’re out and about. There’s something that sort of tugs at Taka, something that insists his discomfort is in the way the other members of his gang seem to have gotten the same incorrect impression about their relationship. With each successive question, he gets less defensive, his voice losing its snap into something weary until it fully devolves into introducing Taka as _My best friend – no, _not_ my boyfriend_.

But even then, even when everything seems to have relaxed – looks it, sounds it – it all feels fake. There’s something about Mondo that’s still vibrating under the surface, not quite as laidback as he should be on his on turf with his own friends. (Although Michi, as it turns out, is not the only one who finds Taka attractive; and when he comments on this, one of the guys – Daisuke, Kiyotaka thinks he says his name is – makes a comment about “leather gays” that Taka doesn’t wholly understand. He tells Taka to look them up, and gets a swift kick in the shins from Takemichi.)

And each time that happens, Mondo just seems to grow… darker. Like a shadow of himself, clearly trying very hard to smile when he watches Taka interact, and not doing a very good job of actually being happy.

The rational part of Taka’s brain is trying to be supportive, echoing reasons Mondo could be so uncomfortable that have nothing to do with his homosexuality. He could be anxious that things will turn, either Taka or one of his gang members will say something to defend the others and he’ll have to step in, worst case scenario make a choice between the two of them. Or perhaps he’s always this tense around his gang? He does lead it, after all, and Taka’s never seen him in that position before. No one else around them seems concerned at his behavior, although Taka knows him well enough by now to not second-guess his own observations.

And of course, it could just be something entirely different on his mind. Something he can.

…It just sort of _happens_. Again. He doesn’t catch what triggers it, but his breath hitches up in his chest. Like, this, where they are – he can’t really slap himself out of it. They’re almost in a circle, too tight, and his teeth grind into his bottom lip again like he could cut it in half and swallow it down. It takes a lot not to scream or throw himself out into oncoming traffic, right hand throwing back to grab onto something he hopes is sharp or rough, something that will force him out of his head.

But it’s not the brick of the half-wall they’re loitering around or some discarded needles and razorblades. It’s just Mondo’s hand, and it’s the least abrasive thing in the world.

and somehow, it helps anyway

* * *

He should have told Taka earlier. Mondo feels kind of in a bind about it, now. He’s watched Taka meet and get along with pretty much every immediate member of his gang, flustering but not drowning when they started getting a little too friendly, managing to hold his own around them all. And that should make him happy, right? It’s a huge weight off his shoulders if he can have the best in both areas of his life, not having to choose between two options, two versions of himself. He should feel relieved that they mesh like this.

_I guess it reminds me of Daiya._ He has to think on that realization or a moment. There isn’t anything exact about Taka that reminds him of Daiya, because outside of having black hair they don’t even remotely resemble each other. Something about the posture, he guesses, because Daiya always was the neater of the two of them and didn’t have a problem standing up for the right things _instead of standing up for everything until you’re so exhausted you’re getting knocked down, and eventually you **w**ill go down –_

And he thinks, _I should tell Taka now_. It’s that impulse for self-destruction. It stings like a bitch, and there’s no one left to pour disinfectant on the cut.

Without Daiya, Mondo is pretty much useless. Barely functioning. Even when he lets himself down enough to accept Michi’s help, it all just barely scratches the surface. He’s covered in far too many layers of grime. So if he tells Taka now, if he tells them all now, he’ll just go back to being blank. He doesn’t know what he’ll have left, but it’s one less thing to lie about. (Not that there is anything else, about which he is lying.)

(And he’ll say that again, a couple more times.)

His stomach rolls like he’s gonna throw up on the sidewalk, and it wouldn’t be the first time <strike>the first time the first time when he all they could afford was those prepackaged bags of cotton candy and he ate three things of it in one go, downed it with a bottle of beer and got back on his bike, couldn’t even crash it properly but got to the sidewalk before it all came out –</strike>

The awareness that his hand is being held comes at the exact same second as the moment he knows it’s being held way too damn tight. Years of being in a gang should have hardened him and his reflex should have been to throw the guy over his shoulder, but there’s something about him and Taka that he knows it’s him in the instance between two thoughts.

He feels his knuckles cracking under Taka’s grip. It’s not unlike Kiyotaka to look pale or tear up, but he’s never seen the guy look scared.

It’s the same as on the phone.

Michi sees something and doesn’t ask, so there are times when he doesn’t just live to embarrass Mondo in front of his friends. Not that he cares, really – it’s the same sorta shit he did to Daiya, or tried to do at least. Daiya never seemed affected by a single one of Mondo’s stunts.

He kinda wonders how Daiya would deal with this, now. He never did finish high school. That shit’s kinda hard when you’re trying to make ends meet. If Mondo hadn’t gotten into Hope’s Peak, he probably wouldn’t be finishing it either. Not that it tells him a damn thing about this, about how to take care of people, but Daiya didn’t leave him a set of instructions on how to be the goddamn best at everything.

He looks at where Kiyotaka is sitting on his brother’s bed, just a mattress on the floor, his knees up and hands folded, pressed between them. He hasn’t expanded on his panic attack from the other day at all, or the one he had less than an hour ago, and Mondo doesn’t expect him to. But he does sit there and stare at his own body like he’s trying to keep himself from exploding, and so now, again, Mondo thinks to himself that he could say it.

His thumb presses into the paint of the doorframe and wonders if it’s just in his imagination that he feels it budge.

_I killed my brother_. Taka would look up at him, face back pale and terrified. And he’d say, _What?_ in a soft voice, because it’s him and he wouldn’t believe something that just slipped out that quickly, that easily. Not something like that. And it would feel like a bottle being broken over his head the first time, but the second time would be like the shard being jabbed in his stomach. Mondo’s fingers tighten and knuckles go white. Even the violence in the imagery makes him see red, the idea that someone would ever hurt Taka like that. He’s been in fights outside of bars, walked home with bloody lips and bruised skin and someone else’s spit on his shoes and their skin under his fingernails. He’s taken out a lot of anger on everyone around him as a way to walk around things he can’t quite handle.

Taka thinks better of him. But he won’t if Mondo just tells him he’s the reason that mattress he’s sitting on is vacant.

… … … … … … … … But he can’t get the words out. And it’s probably better that way. Daiya used to say to him that words were their own kind of violence, and there were things you could say and things you could do that would fuck people up in ways his fists never could. He always got told to watch his mouth and the things coming out of it, and built a way to prerecord every message. Not tripping up. Not spilling secrets.

If telling Taka now would be violence, then he can wait. And if he doesn’t open up in good time, well. He knows someone else will do it for him.

* * *

The first month back at school is odd. Getting back into school after breaks is usually a bit of a trial for people, having to adjust their schedules back after time off, and the only person he’s ever met who actually enjoyed heading back to school is himself. Breaks for Taka tend to mean little social interaction and even less to keep his mind occupied. And even though he did get to spend time with Mondo outside of school, he still has a nagging feeling in the back of his mind, and he knows another – episode, for lack of a better word, is right around the corner. And if he has school to focus on, he won’t be locked inside his head. He won’t have time to be.

But he’d sort of forgotten about the people avoiding him. Being around Mondo’s gang, having them all like him despite his personality and, for some of them, even because of his homosexuality, was something he hadn’t known he needed. Then he sees Toko first, and she responds to the hand he’s raising to wave with a startled gasp and runs off in the other direction. And right into Sayaka. Who looks at him with guilt, before turning her back on him as well.

He’d managed to convince his father that coming back was a good idea because he’d use this time to work on “public policy.” He could convince his peers not to react to him with scorn because of his sexuality. Which had done absolutely nothing to help his father’s anxiety, and Takaaki had only relented by asking, “Is your – er – ‘_kyoudai_’ still the ultimate gang leader?”

Of course Taka tried arguing that he didn’t need someone else to fight his battles for him, but then Mondo had given his father a _man’s promise_ (good lord), and followed it up the second they got to school by telling Taka he was going to try and “Set Leon straight.” Then he looked down at Taka and mumbled, “No pun intended,” before ruffling his hair and running off.

At the very least, that leaves Taka to handle Toko and Sayaka on his own. Knowing Mondo, he’d accidentally scare them more by shouting. Toko would be difficult to figure out a strategy for, since she already spent so much time avoiding others, but Sayaka looked hesitant to walk away. He could start there.

“Hey! Taka!” He doesn’t feel the tug on his sleeve and nearly smacks Chihiro in the face as he turns (_teeth in his lip nails in his palms no no no **GO AWAY**_) to face her. She only laughs at his flailing, correcting her posture as she looks at him.

And he stares at her, not sure what to say. They didn’t speak during the summer, and now he’s regretting it. Does she remember him avoiding her the year before, once she and Mondo started dating? That’s probably what she’s here for, Mondo must have told her he came over near the end of break. He shifts weight between his feet and points in the direction he saw Mondo ran off to, and starts to say it –

-at the same time she starts talking. She laughs again, a little nervously, sounding not quite genuine, eyes on Taka’s boots. “S-sorry. I actually, uhm. I wanted to talk to you.”

He swallows, hand locking up. “Oh.” Right. Okay. They were friends before break. He can do this. Probably. “About – about anything in particular, or…?”

(_so cold. so rigid. probably better this way. no one will ever think you’re_) “It’s- uhm. Uhm!” There are tears forming in her eyes, and he blinks rapidly at them, trying to keep his focus. “It’s about th-the blackmail? I wanted – wanted to know how you’re dealing with it?”

His pointer finger starts tearing at the skin on his thumb. He feels that chill again, sudden and uncomfortable. “Oh,” he says. “It’s – well. Not as bad as I expected. I’m planning on convincing the rest of the class I’m not some sort of pervert. Ha ha!” _Does it sound as fake as it feels? Why is everything echoing?_

“Okay. That’s – that’s good,” she says, fingers on her lips. “How about…” Her fingers curl up. She looks like she might start biting her nails. And he watches her swallow, take a deep breath, and mimics her breathing. “Taka. How did you come out?”

He frowns. She was there, but given everything going on – it’s entirely possible, of course, that she simply forgot. He wouldn’t blame her for being caught up in her own part of the scandal. “At that meeting they held in the classroom, when everyone started demanding –“

“N-no,” she says, another fake laugh punctuating the syllables. “I mean…how did you find the strength to do that? Weren’t you scared?”

…So she wants to do it, too. Talk about her secret, whatever it is. He feels guilt wrapping around him when he says, “I wasn’t really thinking. I just sort of blurted it out.” She looks disappointed. “I’m sorry. I wish I had –“

“I’m trans.” She covers her mouth again for a second, and then moves it. She is… They are? He is? Not crying, which Taka takes as a good sign.

“Ah. Okay.” His brain rolls like a tipped over bowling pin. “So would you prefer I – I mean, do you… do you have a different name you prefer to go by? Or prefer I use different pronouns, at least in private?”

Chihiro looks confused for a minute, and then laughs again, but it sounds less forced this time. “No, no – Taka. I’m. This is how I want to be perceived, what I want to be called. I want to be a girl. That is…what I’m being blackmailed about.” She sighs, putting a hand on her chest. “That feels. A bit better.”

Kiyotaka nods, because that’s something he can definitely understand. Even if he wasn’t aware of his own secret for as long as Chihiro must have been about hers. “Well, I’m glad. Er…” Having been robbed of a chance to do this on his own terms, Kiyotaka finds he’s not really sure what to say or ask. So he settles on, “Have you told Mondo?”

“No!” It’s almost shouted, and she huffs, putting her hand on her forehead. “No – I don’t think he’ll react badly, necessarily. But you know how overprotective he tends to get –“ Taka can’t suppress a groan, and she giggles. “I wanted to try and get a bit stronger, physically, before I said anything, so I could take care of myself. I’ve always been very weak, and I don’t want someone else to have to stand up for me all the time. Especially since I’ll be going to work on programs abroad after graduation –“

She blushes quite suddenly, and covers her mouth again. “I get the impression you weren’t supposed to talk about that?” She shakes her head. “I’m not going to tell anyone, although you should tell Mondo, eventually.”

At that, she looks away. As far from Taka’s eyes as she can get. “I know.” He doesn’t want to ask what it means, even if there’s something in his whole body that’s yelling, threatening to get on a rant about something. The kind of thing that’s always pushed people away before, and the kind of thing he can’t risk now that someone’s come to him for help. “I will, Taka. I promise.”

He’s glad that she sees where his mind is going (in a good way a good way she -) and can divert him. It’s why they make good friends, whether Mondo is there or not. And he should remember that, even when his brain is telling him to <strike>l</strike> “He actually went to talk to Leon,” he says, to cut off his own thoughts. “Er. In reference to him being. Overprotective.”

“Poor Leon,” she says, although she doesn’t sound much like she means it. “I should go talk to Mondo. At least about –“ she looks around. “Well, about one thing. Maybe we can…all train together, in the weights room?” She smiles at him, hopefully. And he might be gay, but he can’t really say no to that, nodding and leaning into the hug she gives him before she runs off after her errant boyfriend.

* * *

He and Leon have always gotten on well, so talking to him about not being a homophobic dick shouldn’t be that much of a problem. If he can actually find the damn guy. He could’ve sworn he saw him rounding the corner – but damn, he’s fast when he wants to be. _Guess it makes sense, his talent _is_ bein’ an athlete_.

Mondo has to give up after what he figures is two hours of looking for Leon. He knows there’s no way in hell Togami’s gonna give him the time of day in his free time, so he’ll just tackle that problem during the school day. He knows Taka will hate the threat of violence, but it’ll be worth it.

In the meantime, he needs to talk to his girlfriend.

And she needs to talk to him.

Because she’s got things to tell him.

Well, she says things, but really, it’s just one thing. And he’s not sure how to respond to it, because of course her – how do they phrase it? Assigned gender at birth? Doesn’t bother him, but her being the second close person to come out to him <strike>because michi doesn’t count just dropping it in the middle of a conversation like that not as though it matters much but give a guy a warning before you hit on his kiyo</strike> – he still hasn’t quite figured out a good way to voice support. So he just kinda rubs the back of his head and says, “Thanks fer tellin’ me. I wish, uh. It’a been under better circumstances?” She tilts her head. “Like, ‘cause ya wanted to say it, and ‘cause ya had to.”

She hums in response, still not looking up at him. He can tells he’s thinking through what she wants to say. And when she puts it together, she doesn’t look as nervous as he would be if he was about to ask someone, “Are you gay?”

But then this isn’t the first time she’s asked him. “What?!” He knows it’s an over-reaction. “No!” But he can’t help it. “Is this ‘cause the last coupla days of break with Taka?” Her eyes widen.

Oh. Shit. He never told her. “Uhm… No, although that – No, I was just wondering because of my secret, and Taka’s? I was just considering that there might be a pattern.” Her cheeks flush, and she looks… Hell, he doesn’t know what that look means. “Are you sure you’re not… bi, maybe?”

And he should be honest. That gets him to thinking.

* * *

Kiyotaka has no idea if Mondo managed to reach out to Leon (or Byakuya, although he very much doubts that one; even before Kiyotaka came out – even before he befriended Mondo, for that matter – Togami avoided the both of them, as if diseased), but he presents himself to Taka nonetheless on the first day of classes, sat backwards in his seat with his elbows on Taka’s desk. “So, like, I’ve decided the whole you-being-gay thing doesn’t bother me.”

He can’t tell where this is going, but he has a feeling it’s not ending here. Kiyotaka picks up a pencil, just to have something to do with his hands, and starts tapping the eraser on his desk. The only responses he can think of are, “Oh?” and “Thank you?”

“Y’see –“ he leans back a bit, gesturing at nothing in particular. “I figure, like, if you did find me attractive – which!” He holds his hands up – “I’m not saying you do, but if you _did_, that would just be flattering, right?”

“Uhm,” Taka says.

“And like, since I wanna go into music, it could only help to expand my fanbase if I get a gay guy’s opinion, you know?” He runs one hand through his hair, the other holding onto the back of his seat. “So I guess what I’m tryin’ to say is… I’m sorry, man, that I was being weird about it.”

_Oh, well, that was easy. Maybe all the others need is time, too?_ “Thank you, Leon.” He stares at a pencil mark on the surface of his desk, and starts to erase it. “I’m not sure that I can speak for the entire gay community, though –“

“Oh, yeah, no, I know,” he says. “But like, you got good taste. Kinda weird taste, but I trust you.” He winks, making guns of his fingers. “And like, if you ever need help finding a boyfriend, I’ll totally be your wingman! I’m sure there’s lots of gay jocks out there, if that’s your thing –“

“Oh dear lord, not you too.” It’s funny. Byakuya has never exactly been pleasant, or easy to get along with, but none of the nasty things he has said to Taka, to others, to no one in particular, has ever had this kind of an effect on Kiyotaka before. That stomach-turned-to-stone feeling, muscles tense and body frozen.

He feels like he might throw up. _I wish Mondo was here._

Leon’s attention diverts from Taka to Togami, leaning again on Taka’s desk, his cheek in his hand. And although his gaze is fixed on Byakuya, his words are to Kiyotaka. “Dude, please don’t tell me _he’s_ your type. You can do way better than him, trust me.”

Byakuya turns, fists clenched to make some sort of snide remark, but Kiyotaka has spent just enough time with Mondo to let his mouth move ahead of his brain, and despite all of his trained politeness he responds with “Gods, no,” before he can stop himself.

And Togami looks affronted by his comment. “Excuse me?”

It’s clear it’s not really meant to be a request for repetition, but Leon reiterates anyway. “He said he ain’t into you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Byakuya snaps. “I happen to be everyone’s type –“

“Not mine,” Taka says, mouth moving ahead of his mind once again.

“Yeah, like, I’m not into dudes, but I can guarantee that even if I was –“ Leon punctuates by looking Byakuya up and down – “You’d be like, the last one I’d go out with.”

Byakuya glowers between the two of them for a moment, looking for some kind of a trap. He sneers, crossing his arms over his chest, looking at them out of the corners of his eyes. “Fine. I can accept a challenge. By the end of this school year, both of you will be forced to see that I am everyone’s ideal man. Even for other men.”

He turns on heel and heads to his own desk. Leon looks at Taka, and covers his mouth with his hand under his nose. “Dude. Holy _shit_.”

“Yeah, man, the fuck was that about?” Leon startles, almost falling backwards out of his seat to turn around and look at Mondo.

Mondo, who’s glaring at him. And Kiyotaka can’t tell if Leon picks up on it or not. “Just Togami, being a tool like always. The dumbass actually thinks Taka would date _him_.”

Mondo eases up a little bit, smirking. He reaches over to ruffle Taka’s hair. “Yeah, right,” he says. “Obviously, if Taka’s gonna date any dude in our class, it’s gonna be me.”

(Taka’s politeness returns in time to pretend he didn’t hear that.)

* * *

He’s sorta been doing it again. Distancing himself from his friends and, you know. Loved ones.

Leon getting his head out of his ass is a good thing, an absolutely great thing, but it means that Taka’s got – yet again – more friends. Which he should be happy about, he knows – and he is happy! Really. It’s great that he’s come out of his shell and all.

But god damn if it doesn’t make Mondo think that Taka is already doing better in his choice of friends. That he’s not gonna have to wait for Taka to decide that Mondo really isn’t that important, that -

“I can’t do this.” It’s Chihiro. It’s lunch. Right. He’s forgotten where he was. Again.

She sounds resigned. People sound like that a lot when they talk to Mondo. Like his very presence drains them. It’s upsetting, but he’s not sure which part of it is worse; the anger that rises in him as everyone loses their patience, gives up, deserts him, the eternal lost cause – or all the things he can’t say stacking up in his throat, making it hard for him to talk and just admit that he deserves this, deserves the abandonment and loneliness, trying at penance for the rest of his life for mistakes he will never stop making. He knows a part of what Chihiro will say before she says it. “I think we should break up.”

He’s still staring at the table when he spits out the word “Fine” and doesn’t mean it. If he actually tries to look at her, he might start crying, and he doesn’t deserve that. To be gentle with himself.

“Mondo?” It starts off soft. A question, a request. But then she follows it up with a smack against his arm, surprisingly strong and painful. Mondo hisses and turns his scowl to his now ex-girlfriend, guilt hitting his anger. She doesn’t look mad at him, or as sad as she could be. “I- I want you to be happy,” she says, hand rubbing the spot she’d hit. “And I know you’re not…unhappy with me, exactly. But – But I think you need to admit you’d rather be with Taka.”

Idiot that he is, he says, “He’s datin’ someone else.”

He doesn’t miss it. He hears and takes note of his own words and doesn’t know if there’s a point in denying what it means.

Chihiro shakes her head, but she’s kind of laughing. “You do that a lot,” she says. “Prioritize him. And I thought it made sense. He is…” she trails off, fingers on her lips. Thinking of a polite way to put it. He certainly is. “Different. Needs help, socially, to integrate.” Her fingers drop, scratching her wrist absentmindedly. And silence makes him nervous, but it’s not as awful as he thought it would be. “You called him ‘Kiyo.’ Did you realize?”

_Did I? Why does that sound familiar?_

_…When?_

“I asked you last semester if you were in love with him. And you said no, but you called him the nickname he said he’d only want a lover to use.”

A swallow. It barely makes its way down his throat. “I’m sorry.”

Chihiro almost seems like she’s trembling now, and it starts to crash. “And then you said you couldn’t do better than him.”

**Oh.**

Mondo doesn’t know what to do. He’s been – still is – closed off, emotionally. Daiya was good at this, always the first to comfort his friends, his partners, Mondo himself. Mondo as a kid always thought his big brother was rowdy and untamed, a force to be reckoned with. It’s not like that image is faulty – Daiya was one of a kind, absolutely unstoppable <strike>until Mondo it’s always Mondo breaking things</strike> but he was also affectionate and careful, gentle with fragile things. He was understanding. He put in an effort Mondo still can’t wrap his head around.

He always knew what to say. And Mondo’s just drowning again. “Shit. Chi –“

“Don’t start.” It’s so weird to hear her laugh and cry at the same time. He’s never really understood how a person could do both. “I don’t – I’m not angry, Mondo –“

“You should be,” he admits. He closes his teeth down on the side of his tongue and wonders what it’d take to bite the damn thing off. He remembers hearing how people choke on their tongues –

“It’s difficult, Mondo. Things like this – but I don’t want to be a runner up –“

“That’s not –“

“I know. I know! I _know_ it wasn’t your intention –“ He’s finding it so hard to get his eyes to focus, to see what’s happening in front of him as it’s happening. He hears her sniffling and sees her hands rubbing her eyes. He can feel it, like his own eyes are irritated and dry and stinging. Probably the only valid reason he has to hate crying. “But I think… I think you’re in love with him. Or you will be. And I don’t want to just wait for that to happen.”

Mondo looks at her until he can’t anymore and has to look at his hand, nails chipped. He hears Michi looping in his head, pointing at Taka with something he’d told himself was teasing but just – probably just to keep himself from thinking about, probably only told himself that. Probably was interest, interest he didn’t want to hear and see and find more competition. Mondo sighs at himself through his teeth, breath feeling hot on his hands. “We still gonna be friends, right?”

Chihiro smacks him again, and it only stings because the last slap was so hard. “Of course we are.”

He doesn’t know if she looks at him. He can’t look at her right now.

(But he does remember, from back in the summer break,  
“You know, you actually didn’t say girlfriend,” Takemichi had muttered to him. “You just said you were datin’ somebody. And I figured it was fifty-fifty. Either it was Chihiro or Taka.”  
“And what made you decide it was a guy?” Mondo asked, telling himself he sounded angry.  
“Ya talk about him way more.”)

* * *

It’s a good thing that Gundham is not much for conversation. Taka has spent the last several days (weeks, maybe? it could have been weeks. he keeps losing track of time) feeling like everything has been unbearably loud.

Sayaka came up and apologized to him, tearfully, for being so wary. She explained that she had a fear relating to some kind of past trauma, of guys she had known as an idol who hid bad intentions by claiming to be gay, and that while she knew he wasn’t like that she still felt…

fuzzy. the rest of that conversation is fuzzy.

something something something and then Toko explaining something, talking about her blackmail piece. something something something about Genocide Jack and targeting pretty boys, fetishizing gay people, trying to keep her distance so they wouldn’t attack him or Chihiro…

He feels like he might fall over. He’s been getting this lately – dizzy. Feverish. _Something_ keeps creeping up on him, and all these unwanted thoughts keep coalescing and hovering over him until he’s suffocated. And he’s been trying not to go for his lighter, been trying [other things] to keep himself grounded, to make the thoughts stop. And his hands are starting to ache from the use of disinfectant, his lips are cracked and dried with blood.

And he’s so exhausted from the lack of sleep. From keeping himself up as long as he can and running himself ragged to keep his mind occupied. Trying to keep himself – “Kiyotaka.”

He doesn’t quite feel Gundham’s hand on his arm, shaking him, but he can see it. “You appear vexed. What demons are you harboring?”

_Demons._ It’s just how he talks.

And maybe he knows something. Something that could help.

“Is there –“ Kiyotaka stops himself. He wonders if he’s really shaking, or if his mind is just trying to trick him. He feels chilled beneath his skin as he thinks about the phrasing he needs to use, the exact words he needs to say. He only has one shot at this, (is only giving himself one shot at this) so he needs to get it right the first time. He doesn’t think he can stand to go through it all again. “Is there s-some sort of ritual you have that can… cleanse me?”

Gundham doesn’t blink. It’s something Kiyotaka knows others find discomforting about him, makes them feel studied like animals. And maybe that’s true, but it doesn’t really bother Kiyotaka much, not when he’s still so unused to being really listened to. “Cleanse you?” he repeats.

He knows what the question mark means. _How_. It’s a question Kiyotaka knew was a possible reaction to his request, and one he’d been quite dreadfully hoping he wouldn’t have to answer. His worst fear is having to describe it, the things he sees, and then everything that comes with it. All the horror and disgust and accusations, the unrelenting and continued shame he’s bringing not only to his family but to his sexuality. Isn’t it bad enough, what people think of gay men already – and then this – “Impure thoughts,” he says, and Gundham blinks but doesn’t get any words out before “**_Unwanted thoughts_**” follows it, louder, almost shouted.

He looks sharp, eyes narrowed. “Unwanted in what manner?” Kiyotaka should be amazed at how steady his voice remains, but his brain is giving him so many alarms; that the calm is fake, that the “Violent? Blasphemous?”

“Something like that,” Taka says, feeling like he’s whispering. And it almost feels, too, like he’s falling backwards, his throat closing in on itself. “And worse.”

His eyes catch Gundham’s hands moving and everything in his body wants to scream.

It feels like he’s dying. He’s known anxiety before, but not like this. Not on this level, not with this intensity, his ears already ringing with sirens and so sure that every second of his life has been monitored. His brain starts racing “I don’t even want to act on these impulses –“ that it would be easiest it would be best it would be _nicest_ “I never have! I never would –“ if he could run out into the street “My mind just fixates on – it won’t leave me alone –“ out to the trains, laying down on the tracks - 

He feels it again, uncontrolled. Like he’s lurching forward, swaying and disconnected from his body. He almost falls over with this head between his knees, and for a second he thinks he’s going to throw up. He’s never done that before, not from anxiety. He’s prone to tears when frustrated, emotional outbursts just like his dad, but this feels like reeling. None of it feels real.

The grip on his shoulders almost hurts. He’s being pushed back up, Gundham in front of him. And he looks…something. Still steady, and calm, and something frustrated beneath the surface and targeted somewhere else. Taka opens his mouth to try and justify himself and his words, but Gundham presses his fingers to Taka’s mouth to keep him quiet. “Dearest,” he says, “You do indeed need a practitioner, but of a very different Dark Art altogether.”

* * *

News that Mondo and Chihiro broke up spreads quickly, and Mondo gets a lot of ‘my condolences’ from everyone except Taka, who seems preoccupied. Which really stings, until he mentions Mondo and Chihiro’s relationship in an offhanded way and Mondo has to awkwardly tell him, hand scratching the back of his neck, “We broke up.”

_(because I’d rather be with you)_

He doesn’t mean to think the last part. Especially not when Taka looks horrified and rushes to apologize for not knowing, breaking down in hiccupping tears. He’s never been good at controlling his emotions, but this seems like an over-reaction even for him. So Mondo can’t really be mad, patting Taka’s back as he starts shaking. Which is just weird.

“I haven’t- haven’t been – been dealing with things well, recently,” Taka says. His hands are on his forehead. He looks like he’s completely breaking down.

“Yeah, man,” Mondo says, hand sliding down Taka’s back, up again, caressing the back of his neck – “I can tell.”

“I need to – I need to go,” he says, and before Mondo can tell him that he doesn’t have to leave just because he forgot something so totally insignificant as Mondo breaking up, he says, “I have an appointment I must keep.” He looks at Mondo, looking guilty and terrified for a second before he rushes into his chest and squeezes him in a tight hug.

Mondo returns it and tries so hard to reign in the impulse to kiss his hair.

Fuck.

Chihiro might have been right. It’s something he’s been trying to come to terms with slowly, but now that it’s in his head he can’t stop thinking about it. And he’s sure he’s slipped up enough for others to notice, because Leon and Makoto have both been giving him looks. The kind of looks that tell him he’s probably the last to know that he might actually be bi and kind of into his best friend.

He doesn’t want to rush into anything with this, not when it’s something he’s only just now started to realize about himself. He wants to make sure he’s not just strangling himself in fear of Taka leaving him behind, never talking to him again once he’s gone out to ‘higher education,’ but once he’s let one thought creep in, all the other ones follow it. Like how all those things he thought were irritating about him before they became friends are actually kind of sweet and endearing, and how his lips actually look really soft and nice.

It’s a mindset he needs to snap out of, because Taka’s suffering and he needs to be there for him, since he’s been kinda useless for the last six or whatever months.

Taka says he wants to have an honest discussion with Mondo about what’s been going on with him since the day he called him over summer and freaked out. He doesn’t know why they’re meeting up in a classroom, of all places, to discuss it, until he sees Taka coming down the hall looking all puffy-eyed like he’s been crying. And Mondo thinks about running his thumbs under Taka’s eyes and wrapping him up in his coat with him.

“Fuck, man,” he says, trying to make his voice sound normal. He doesn’t know if he should stand up, or what, more aware of his movements over the course of the last couple weeks than he ever really had been before. “You okay? Ya look like you’ve been crying.” Taka reaches up, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands. It’s so fucking cute. “And not in ya normal way, I mean,” he adds.

“No. Yes – I mean. I have been crying. But it’s fine.” He huffs, finishing wiping his face and stands with his arms at his sides, back straight. “It’s actually related to what I wanted to talk to you about today.”

Mondo nods. He feels uneasy, and for a second he’s overcome with fear that Taka must have figured out his feelings. If Chihiro could do it, before he was even aware of them himself – well, Taka’s pretty fucking smart – he panics, and asks, “Is this about, uh. Yer boyfriend? Gundham?”

Taka blinks at him, caught off-guard. So whatever he’s gonna say, if it’s gonna hurt, Mondo’s got a little while longer to pretend it’s not coming.

Kiyotaka blushes. “Ah…We broke up,” he admits. Taka looks away from Mondo, running his fingers along the back of his hair.

He hates that he feels relieved by that. He should be sad for him, or something, not with his heart beating in his throat for a different kinda reason. “I’ll kick his ass,” Mondo says, but even he can hear that the emotion’s not really behind the sentiment. (Even if it still kinda is.)

“What?” Taka looks back at him, brows furrowed, scowling. Mondo’s nails scrape against the desk to keep himself from doing something monumentally stupid now the thought’s in his head that he does want to kiss him, wants to frame him in place with his arms and hear him breathe fast. “No! No, it wasn’t over – over what I’m going to tell you, or anything bad. He’s just…” Taka stares at his knees for a second, and Mondo watches him turning things over in his mind, not sure if he should say it or not.

(It kind of kills Mondo that he doesn’t know the answer.)

“You… you promise you won’t tell anyone? I’m just not sure, if it’s something he’s open about yet, or not. And I know what other people will say, when they hear, if they hear it from me and not him.” <strike>The way he bites his lip is –</strike>

“Yeah,” Mondo says, totally not letting the crack in his voice get to him. “’Course, who the fuck would I tell anyway?”

Kiyotaka’s eyes slide shut. “He’s aromantic.” He really doesn’t look that upset about it. “He just – well, he tried dating a girl first, and when he didn’t feel anything, thought that he might be gay. And he got admiration and platonic affection confused with romantic interest.” He finally looks back at Mondo. “We’re still friends. It’s sad, but it’s not the worst thing that could have happened, in all honesty.”

(Mondo doesn’t get it. Doesn’t get how you could date Kiyotaka Ishimaru and not fall in love with him.)

But he looks happy. And Mondo guesses he’s had his last five minutes of peace. Now he’d kinda rather get whatever it is over with. He curls his fingers in and tries not to let his breath burst. “Alright. I guess that’s – well, whatever it is. But then what did ya have to tell me?”

Taka opens his mouth, and Mondo watches him breathe. His fist tightens, and he remembers Taka grabbing his hand in a moment of panic; remembers them going back to his apartment and Taka collapsing, pulling his whole body inward while Mondo was caught up in something else. His eyes looked puffy like this, too, after a couple hours had gone by and Taka came out of Daiya’s room. Mondo didn’t ask about it then, but now he’s thinking that it’s probably the same. That this is what he’s going to tell Mondo: what it is he’s been fixated on, panicking about. Makes a hell of a lot more sense.

“I’ve…” Taka fidgets, rubbing his hands together. “I’ve been to a- a therapist. Gundham took me, actually. Someone who used to attend Hope’s Peak. And it appears that I have… Well. I’ve – developed… a kind of serious anxiety disorder.”

Mondo frowns, running his hand through the back of his hair. “I mean, ya always been anxious. ‘f it was an Olympic sport, ya’d get gold. You sayin’ it’s gotten worse?”

“Yes.” There’s no pause between words. His chest seems to be moving faster than it should. Mondo wants to hold him. _That wouldn’t be weird, right?_ “I – I can’t go too far into detail. Not now. But… Do you remember me asking you what you would do, if I wasn’t a good person?”

“Yeah.” He licks his lips. “You ain’t gotta worry about that, man. You are a good person. Always gonna be.”

“I know,” he says. But he just looks anxious. “And hearing you say that, it does help. But that worry, irrational thought it may seem… It’s become an obsession. My brain won’t let it go. And every time I think –“ He grimaces suddenly, eyes so tight he must be seeing spots in his vision when he reopens them. For a moment Mondo thinks he might scream, and he can just picture this being what he looked like that day, on the phone. It looks painful. He hates watching it. “Every time something makes me think that I might not be, or that I might become bad I feel like…” He trails off.

And he doesn’t pick back up. So Mondo runs his teeth over his tongue, thinking of how to prompt it without being pushy. “’S there anything you need me to do? Ta help you, with this obsessin’ anxiety thing?”

Taka closes his eyes again, but not as tightly as before. He takes a deep breath, shoulders moving, (they’d fit right under Mondo’s palms), and reaches into his pocket. “I need you to take this, and hide it from me. Don’t ever tell me where it is.”

It’s a lighter. Nothing he’s said has ever scared Mondo before, but this? This does kinda freak him out. He looks back up at Taka, panicked himself and about to ask where the hell he got it, what he was planning on doing with it, but when Taka looks so terrified and vulnerable like that… he just kinda swallows his questions down. “Alright.”

Taka stands there, watching him for a moment before he says, “There is something else –“

“Anything.”

He should be embarrassed about how quickly it comes out. But Taka just looks so relieved. “Well, two things.” Mondo nods for him to go on, and watches his fingers fold together. Stares at them. Trying not to let his mind drift. “First, could you… could you keep reassuring me, when it gets like that? I know it will be kind of irritating –“

“Not if it’s you.” _God, make me stop that._

Taka’s blushing. And he did break up with his boyfriend. “The second, is this: Could you come with me to a meeting on Friday?”

* * *

Mondo had seemed timid up until they actually got to the headmaster’s office. Then, he just seemed confused. Apparently Kiyotaka neglected to tell him what the “meeting” was, and he’d assumed he was coming to therapy with Kiyotaka as a sort of moral support. Which is, more or less, why he’s here, but it’s not therapy they’re here for.

There’s still something kind of strange about being here, and something uncomfortable about it all, but he keeps reassuring himself that it’s for a good cause. Gundham came back for this, after all, and so did Komaeda and Hinata, Munakata and Yukizome and Sakakura. Even Toko, after so much debate, agreed, still terrified and unwilling to get much closer to the rest of the group. Although with Sakakura advancing the way he is, she’s starting to move in to the people she knows.

_(Gundham had taken one look at Taka, and then explained to Mondo what they were here for.)_

“You realize this is at least three accounts of very serious and worsening mental illnesses of your students under your care?” Munakata doesn’t beat around the bush when he’s angry. Taka wonders if he ever does. “That’s in addition to four accounts of blackmail, and a frankly obscene number of attempts at brainwashing.”

_(“I can sense that Kiyotaka has explained a part of the situation to you. You see, he is not the first to request my aide on matters of an ill mind.” Something in his face twitched.) _

“And him,” Sakakura adds, thumb jabbing back to indicate Hinata.

_(“Hajime and Nagito requested my assistance at different points last year,” he continued. “All three reported that requests for leave of absence were denied.”) _

Jin sighs. All Taka can think is, _That’s Kyouko’s father_. Someone pats his back when his body moves, tense and aching, and he isn’t sure if it’s Gundham or Mondo touching him. It could be Komaeda, for all he knows. He doesn’t care much, as it doesn’t make him feel any better or any worse regardless.

_(It took Mondo a moment of looking around at the group, letting it come together in his head. “Ya mean like, to go to a psych ward?”)_

He can’t really hear what the headmaster is saying, but he’s been watching Hinata’s face slowly get angrier, his frown set harder in place.

_(“Even just for therapy,” Hinata mumbled. “Did they tell you there was a murder in the reserve course? And none of us were allowed to miss classes to deal with it?”) _

“We have several reports that members of Class 78 attempted to, or were successful in, damaging the school building. Self-reports, I might add. One of whom was talked down by your daughter. She informed us that you were told of the attempted bomber’s plan, and did nothing –“ There’s a break for a minute, where Taka guesses Kirigiri attempts to speak, but Munakata cuts him off quickly. “Silence. You repeatedly put the student body of this school in harm’s way, under the claim that acting to protect them would hinder your ability to determine who the ‘Ultimate Despair’ was. Despite this, you have apparently made no progress in your investigation.”

_(Taka managed to get words out, finally. “I wanted to take a leave of absence from school. I thought I was losing my mind.”)_

Yukizome puts a hand on Sakakura’s arm, trying to hold him back. He only stays in place because Munakata puts an arm out. “I’ve spoken with the stakeholders of this school.”

_(“And he said no?”)_

“They want you removed. Immediately.”

_(Taka swallowed. Someone was patting his shoulder then, too. “He kept telling me that he was sure I could do it. Didn’t it go against my morals to take breaks or shortcuts? Wasn’t I here to prove that a normal person could handle this?”)_

Once again, he can’t really hear what the headmaster is saying, but he thinks he understands why Sakakura came with them. Although what they thought the rest of them would be able to do, if he wouldn’t listen to them individually…

_(Gundham dropped that affect for a moment. Just long enough to say, “Bastard.”)_

“I should mention, that should you be unwilling to leave on your own terms, there is police interest in this case.” Munakata moves for a second, doing something with his hand, as if he’s used to having a weapon on him. Odd, for someone whose talent was Student Council President.

_(“That’s why I’ve been so… I’m sorry, Mondo. That I haven’t really been –“ “S’ok, man. It ain’t yer fault.”)_

The silence stretches on for too long, but eventually Kirigiri does stand, hands in his pockets. He looks past Munakata, to the students, attempting to make eye contact. And Munakata shifts closer to Sakakura, trying to shield them, but not quite managing it in time.

Kiyotaka swallows, grabbing onto the hand next to his. Trying to keep himself from holding so hard the knuckles crack, the bones break, the –

“Alright. I guess I’ll go on my own, then.”

He doesn’t try looking back at them when he leaves.

* * *

There never seems to be a good, appropriate time for him to drop the words _I think I might have romantic feelings for you_ into a conversation. And on a totally unrelated, purely coincidental note, he thinks he can drop the _might_. And the _I think_.

Shit.

Taka seems to be coping a bit better with his disorder now than he had over the summer. Mondo still doesn’t totally understand what it is he’s dealing with, and his stomach still feels tight and his breath tastes bitter when he thinks about the fact that Gundham knows and Komaeda-please-call-me-Nagito knows but he doesn’t. That last one, insufferable jackass, looked right at Mondo and just knew what he was thinking and said “Don’t try to make him think about it” in a way that managed to sound both like advice and a threat. Which, he wasn’t –

Okay. Not totally true. He is a little jealous that he doesn’t know even though he knows that feeling is irrational. He did try asking Taka to explain it to him, three times, because Taka looked like he might be able to do it and even said he would be able to, but the way his face blanched out and his eyes got bigger and he looked like he might pass out the last time Mondo asked – yeah, he’s curious, because he really wants to understand and yeah okay not be left out of the conversation, but he’s not gonna try again. He can just stand there and be the thing Taka fixates on when he starts having a panic because something’s triggered his obsession (he’s done _some_ research, which he _not_ crediting Gundham with), even when that results in Taka telling him every fact that comes to the top of his head first or reciting something they just went over in class, or. You know.

Holding his hand. Like he’s doing now.

Mondo likes to flatter himself for five minutes or less each time this happens by pretending he’s part of the reason Taka’s coping slightly better. Makoto (who he _is_ willing to credit) stressed the importance of a support group to get people through tough times and beyond, using some former classmate’s parent dying in middle school as an example. Mondo put in as much effort as he possibly could to prepare himself, but didn’t predict that the end result would be. Well. This.

Chihiro sees them and raises her eyebrows. She doesn’t exactly have any kind of expression on her face that indicates her feelings, but Mondo still feels his body heat elevate and the tug to look away, pull his hand back and stick it in his pocket.

He thinks to himself, _His mental health is more important than her happiness_. Immediately, he feels like shit. <strike>He’s never asked exactly what Taka was going to do with that lighter.</strike>

It’s been a good two, two-and-a-half months now, and she’s still the only one who knows. Because that’s another thing that Mondo just…does not know how to say. A conversation he doesn’t know how to start. He’s the only one with a piece of blackmail still dangling over his head and every day feels like a bomb timer ticking down to when he’ll lose, just shout it all out in the middle of the dining hall. _I’m bi and I killed my brother. Oh, and I’m in love with my best friend, if he’ll even still talk to me after this._

Not that he’s likely to get all those words out. It’s him, he’ll probably just scream in a blob and run out for Taka to chase after him.

“Are the two of you no longer on speaking terms?” He must have zoned out. He didn’t even notice it at first, the way Taka is caressing the back of his hand with his thumb. It feels a little too good.

(and makoto thought he was worried about people thinking he was gay.)

“Nah, we are,” he mumbles, head down, trying not to knock the top of his hair into Taka’s forehead. “Still jus’ feels a lil awkward.”

Taka squeezes his hand. It’s not like the first time when this happened. It’s softer now, too much and not enough. All the places Taka doesn’t touch him feel freezing, and when Kiyotaka lets go he feels like he’s drowning. He makes eye contact, shining and so bright and so unreal in coloration.

He smiles at Mondo.

It’s one of those that’s kind of rare, because it’s not his natural reflex. It’s the one he’s been working on, for some reason: smiling with his eyes open. And it kind of makes Mondo feel like he’s gonna throw up, because everything in his chest just speeds up and shudders.

He says, “Thank you, Mondo.” And it’s a definite kind of problem and goddamn miracle he doesn’t just say something stupid right there. It’s one of those kinda things that’s gonna make him feel real guilty later on.

And in a different flavor of guilt, right now. Because they’re back in Taka’s room and out of nowhere everything in him just drops. And he starts thinking about it all again: Daiya and Leon and Makoto and Hina and Taka and Michi and everyone moving on and growing up, Daiya pushing him out of the way of that truck and getting hit himself so Mondo can move on and grow up. Fuck.

“Mondo? Are you alright?” Taka’s voice is so light, like the way it used to feel when Chi would touch his face. He misses that affection. He wonders how often he’s wandered into thinking about what it would feel like if Taka touched him that way. And now when he should be thinking about that, he’s thinking about Chihiro. _What the fuck is wrong with me?_

Mondo shakes his head, back uncomfortable against the frame of Taka’s bed and trying not to look him in the eyes. He has to say something, one of the eight hundred things he’s been keeping a secret to himself. To Chihiro. Like the real reason they broke up. His mouth feels loose now, uncontrolled. He’s so tired. “I’m just worried we gonna break up when you get t’ university.”

“Oh.” _Oh, indeed_. That is not how Mondo meant to phrase it, and for a second he thinks he might actually heave, for real. There’s no way it’s not obvious now, right? That slip – sure, of course, friends do have break ups, but it’s not like they’ve been fighting. He could have said ‘drift away,’ should have said ‘drift away’ because that’s way more like what will inevitably happen when Taka’s off doing his thing and learning and growing as a person and realizing how much better he can do in friendships – let alone relationships, good god, if he ever did have feelings for Mondo he’s gonna look back and realize what an idiot he was to have – “Mondo.”

He loves it when Taka does this. By which he means he hates it. He thoroughly detests it because it’s so hard to keep his composure when Taka’s just touching his face, making him look up into his eyes. And he lets out, startled, “Kiyo-?” you said it again.

(It’s so hard not to push up off the ground because if he did they’d be kissing they could be kissing right now instead of doing this -)

“We are not going to stop being friends, best friends, just because I am going to university.” Right. Yeah. Jesus Christ, that hurts. Mondo can’t breathe. He’s trying so hard not to just choke. But he must have known it already, right? Taka doesn’t like him in that way, because if he did – he’s so goddamn straightforward, he’d have said something.

So he can’t bring it up either. He’s already sliding on melting ice here.   
_Don’t tell him you’re bi don’t tell him you’re bi don’t tell him you’re bi._

“I killed Daiya.”

Oh. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. He didn’t mean to say it, didn’t want to say it. He was so preoccupied trying not to let the immediate feelings show that he just did exactly what he always thought he’d do, admit his secret exactly how he always thought he would: blurted out at the worst possible moment, the opportune way to push Taka completely out of his life _and everyone else, and everyone else, except who else is left that matters?_

**[Michi. Michi michi michi michi michi]**

“What?” Taka’s scowling at him, but his hands haven’t moved. He doesn’t look scared, even though he absolutely should. He just looks confused, maybe a little frustrated.

“Daiya,” he says, lips barely moving. “I’m the reason he’s dead. It’s my fault.”

Taka blinks at him, almost pouting. It looks good. He wants to put his hands on him. And he also wants to throw himself out a window. On the top floor. “Mondo,” his thumbs so soft on his cheeks, “It’s not unusual for survivors to blame themselves in post-traumatic guilt –“

“It ain’t fuckin’ survivor’s guilt!” Taka doesn’t flinch, even when he’s shouting, his palms slapping the floor. “I’m the one who challenged him to th’ stupid fuckin’ race to begin with! I got this goddamn inferiority problem and I had to be the best. I had to beat him. I had to prove myself. _I_ fuckin’ killed him. _I_ shoulda died.”

“Mondo –“

“And don’t say it ain’t true –“ am i crying? how long has it been since i cried in front of someone? “’S the reason I’m bein’ blackmailed. Your shit and Chi’s shit and Toko’s shit was all true and so’s this. I’m a coward, and a fuckin’ murderer.”

“MONDO!” He’s never seen him so angry. It doesn’t scare him, like the lighter did. He feels dread, and finality. But Kiyotaka doesn’t pull back, doesn’t look like he’s going to hit him. Mondo opens his mouth, not even knowing for certain what he’s going to say, and Kiyotaka presses a hand over his mouth.

He’s crying. For Mondo. _Again_.

He doesn’t know what this feeling is. Like his body is numb except for where his heartbeat is erratic. And it feels different – not better, or worse. Just different. And he doesn’t know if he’s really calmed down, but he’s at least stopped trying to talk, so Taka moves his hand from Mondo’s mouth to his cheek, moves his head, presses their foreheads together.

Taka doesn’t say anything, not for a while. At some point in time he gets closer, gets on his knees so the angle isn’t as awkward. He just lets Mondo cry until his lips are uncomfortably sticky. And once Mondo’s breathing has gone back to something approaching normal, Taka says, voice flat, “You need therapy.”

He knows his friend means it seriously. It’s a suggestion – and a pretty damn valid one – that he’s making from the bottom of his heart, because he doesn’t want to see Mondo hurting.

But all the same, Mondo laughs. Not loud, or anything. Not dismissively. He even says, “Yeah, prolly.”

Kiyotaka drops so his face is against Mondo’s neck. It’s gross, and wet. But it’s also kind of nice. His arms don’t synch up perfectly around Mondo’s shoulders, but if it doesn’t bother Taka and his need for everything to be aligned, then he isn’t gonna mention it. It feels safer this way, too; harder to let himself get too far, just putting his hands on Taka’s back and pressing his face into Taka’s hair. “You know I will always support you, correct?”

Mondo turns his cheek so he doesn’t wind up with Taka’s hair in his mouth when he says, “Yeah. ‘Course I do.”

“I know that I’ve been…” His nails curl against Mondo’s jacket. He feels Taka breathing against him. “Distant. That I should have been there for you –“

“It’s no big deal –“

“But it _is_,” he says, punctuated with a tighter grip. “This must have been so hard on you, not talking about it. So whatever you need of me, I’ll be there for you.” _Please don’t say things like that._ “Even if it’s just reminding you – like you do for me…” He exhales. Mondo feels Taka’s breath on the back of his neck. “And if there’s anything else that bothers you, you don’t need to hide it. There’s nothing you could do that would make me leave.”

_This is just an impulse. Just because he said that, doesn’t mean you gotta say it_. _All you gotta do is say thank you, and you can get back to studying or whatever the hell it was you came in here to do_. Mondo licks his lips and clears his throat, and says,

“I think I might be bi.”

* * *

He’s going to be annoying if that’s what he needs to be. Annoyingly supportive, that is. He’s good at this thing – reminding people. Schedules, items, his own existence. He’s been so wrapped up in –

Breathe. He needs to breathe.

Taka won’t go anywhere without Mondo for the rest of this school year. For the rest of this time they have before he goes on to higher education and can’t physically be there. He can already hear people calling him ‘clingy’ behind his back, and staring at the two of them, but since people have always stared at him it’s not like it’s that big of a deal. And Mondo is probably used to people staring as well, because no one dresses like that or does their hair the way he does without getting their fair share of looks. And easy as he can be to fluster sometimes, he doesn’t seem to care all that much that people are looking at him.

So maybe Taka has been some sort of good influence on him after all.

He doesn’t attribute it to Mondo being bi. He will not let himself attribute his… _physical _comfort to that in any way, shape, or form, because Kiyotaka Ishimaru is _not_ narcissistic and he’s not about to start. So outside of the recognition that not having that sort of thing as a secret anymore probably has given him less to worry about.

He’s not quite making sense again.

It did kind of throw him off – Mondo coming out. And he has heard, of course, the rumors people have been spreading that they’re _together now_, as in _dating_, and even though Taka isn’t exactly doing his all to dispel those rumors he’s also not going to get his hopes up about them.

…not that he particularly feels one way or another about them. If he has any feelings about it, they’re just this: absolute confusion. And he thinks, overall, that any feelings he used to have or even may still harbor, in a romantic sense, aren’t nearly as important as letting Mondo know that he is the single most important person in his life. Aside from his father.

(they’re probably tied.)

And that no school is going to wreck their friendship. He can’t think of a single thing that would change how he feels about Mondo, honestly. And Mondo had tried to make the argument that surely, murder would do it; to which Kiyotaka had replied that even if Mondo was responsible for Daiya’s death – which he wasn’t – that really wouldn’t do anything to change Taka’s feelings.

Mondo looked at him kind of strangely when he said that. He guesses the emotion was disbelief, and that it looked weird because for all the myriad expressions he’s seen Mondo wear, he doesn’t think Mondo’s ever once doubted the things Kiyotaka said to him. And he still kind of looks at Taka like that, when he thinks Taka won’t notice. Which means that Kiyotaka’s just going to have to be twice as (platonically) affectionate.

He just hopes that this won’t build up into another compulsion. Although, as far as compulsions go, he guesses ‘obsessively supporting your best friend’ isn’t the worst he could do. It’s certainly better than **[REDACTED]**, as it had been. And it’s helping Mondo out, or at least it seems to be. He’s even talking to Chihiro again. As in, right now. Kind of closely. And blushing. Hm.

Chihiro waves when she sees Taka approaching, but then points emphatically to where Byakuya is clearly looking for him, still intent on proving himself as everyone’s perfect suitor. Taka stops, nods, tries to blend into the wall as best he can so Chihiro and Mondo can go to him instead of the other way around. He looks elsewhere and tries not to imagine their hands.

He can’t go back to this. Back to _that_. Mondo’s vulnerable and when Mondo started dating Chihiro the first time he stepped back and oh god probably made him feel abandoned, made him feel replaced by Makoto by Gundham when Mondo views him as a brother AND JUST A BROTHER IF HE LIKED YOU HE WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU – “Yo, Taka. You okay there? Ya look kinda dizzy.” He feels kind of dizzy. But Chihiro and Mondo aren’t next to each other anymore – they’re sandwiching Taka, Chihiro wrapping her arms around Taka’s elbow and almost driving him into Mondo.

_Maybe I’m just getting worked up over nothing._ Chihiro laughs. “See? I _have_ gotten stronger!”

_But he’s all flushed again._ “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Quit showin’ off, yer gonna knock us all over.” Mondo reaches behind Taka to shove Chihiro lightly, and his arm stays around Taka’s shoulders.

_Confused. So very, very confused._ Chihiro giggles again, looking almost…smug. And as much as he feels left out, he’s not sure he wants to know what it is he’s missing. Because this is almost like how things were, before – or how they would have progressed. Like they’ve managed a reset, in which none of them were blackmailed and no one’s feelings were injured by attempted romances.

And maybe, that’s just how things should be.


End file.
